0:00

You wanna grow on social media? When you post,

0:02

why don't you think what's in it for the

0:04

other person instead of what's in it for you?

0:06

The main reason 99% of

0:08

businesses and people can't grow on social is

0:10

they're selfish. They want the likes, they

0:13

want the followers, they wanna sell something.

0:15

Well, guess what? Your audience may not

0:17

like that. And so I think

0:19

if the world can get more into bringing value,

0:22

all the things they want, the questions they'd

0:24

like to be asked, the promotion they would

0:26

like to do, all that works itself out.

0:28

I think that's a perspective change a lot

0:30

of people need. Attention is the number

0:32

one asset. Gary Vaynerchuk, also

0:35

known as Gary V. Thanks so much for joining

0:37

us in our Abu Dhabi studio. Thanks for having

0:39

me. So this is our special edition. We're looking

0:41

at a series of episodes, looking at the highs,

0:43

lows, and the road ahead for social media. You

0:46

know, it's propelled a tremendous amount of

0:49

wealth. You

0:51

talk about this in your new book, Day

0:53

Trading Attention. You

0:56

give some great advice, but you also talk about

0:58

something in particular called the TikTokification of

1:00

social media. Can you extrapolate on

1:03

that? Yeah, social media for

1:05

the last 15 years has

1:07

been more like email and

1:09

email marketing. Meaning get as

1:11

many people to sign up for your

1:13

email, send it out, and a percentage

1:15

of them opens it and engages it.

1:18

So I grew up in email marketing for Wine

1:20

Library. And so when social came and I built

1:22

Gary V, I understood it. I'm

1:25

like, let me get as many followers as I can

1:27

on the merit of my content. And then a percentage

1:29

of those people will see my content every time. About

1:32

three, four years ago, what

1:34

you saw was TikTok gaining

1:36

real steam. And what

1:39

you understood was it was interest graph. The

1:42

algorithm took the content. So for everybody who's

1:44

listening, the fact that I've spent 15 years

1:46

doing good work and amassed

1:48

this huge following, quote unquote, gives

1:51

me almost no, that's a

1:53

little bit extreme, but I don't have

1:55

as big of advantage of

1:57

getting my content out today as I did for you.

2:00

years ago because now if you

2:02

make a good piece of content and

2:04

you've never posted before, it could get 500,000 views and I could

2:06

put out a

2:08

piece of content and it only gets 40,000 views. And

2:11

so the algorithms are taking over

2:13

the feed based on people's interests

2:16

more so than based on who they

2:18

follow. So I would argue that we are in, social

2:21

media is no longer about the

2:24

human part, the social graph, it's

2:26

now around the interest graph which is

2:29

actually much more similar to how people

2:31

consume information. So you've

2:33

already written at least five New York Times

2:35

best sellers. One would think that you have

2:37

sort of saturated the market and there's no

2:39

new information to give. You've already given some

2:41

new hints at that information. What more is

2:43

there in this book that your seasoned Gary

2:46

Vee consumer is gonna

2:48

learn about? That's really fun question

2:51

because I would argue that my

2:53

publisher always makes fun of me

2:55

for making books that are not timeless. So

2:58

it was like Gary, write a timeless book. Something

3:00

that we could sell for the next 50 years. I'm like, but

3:02

I don't want to. And so what

3:04

I mean by that is to answer your question, I've

3:07

written this book before. It was written 10

3:09

years ago. It was called Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. It

3:12

was a monster hit, I'm proud of it. And the

3:14

reason I wrote this book is so many people have

3:16

emailed me in the last 12 months, 24 months saying,

3:19

Gary, I just read Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook.

3:22

Thank you, it's epic. And I'm in

3:24

my mind saying, what are you talking about?

3:27

I mean, obviously there's 30% of that book that

3:30

is still incredibly relevant, but

3:32

so much of it was timely. What will the

3:34

most seasoned Gary Vee fan find in this is

3:37

the details of the, ironically,

3:39

a book allows me to go much more

3:41

detailed than a piece of social media content.

3:44

So this is very academic, it's

3:46

more textbook of a lot of

3:48

things that I talk about in social, but this is

3:50

the current state of the seven platforms that matter, what's

3:53

actually happening. And then I really gave

3:55

people a framework of

3:58

how to think about it, consumer segmentations, cohorts. reading

4:00

all the comments, PCS, you know,

4:03

like these are all post creative strategy. I

4:05

go very detailed in it. What

4:07

are the seven platforms that matter because you have

4:09

a lot of upstarts, you have a lot of,

4:11

you know, established platforms. Facebook, Twitter,

4:14

X, Instagram, TikTok,

4:18

Snapchat, LinkedIn, and

4:20

YouTube. So

4:24

your book inevitably, I think it's safe to say, will rise up

4:26

the charts. There's already a book that sort of entrenched on

4:28

top of the charts right now. Jonathan

4:30

Haidt's book, The Anxious Generation, his

4:33

thesis basically being, you know, there's

4:35

this great rewiring of childhood causing

4:37

an epidemic. He argues

4:39

of mental illness, mental problems. He's

4:41

talking about tech addiction, cell phone

4:43

addiction. Do

4:46

you agree with that thesis at all? I know it's kind

4:48

of a gross oversimplification of his book, but it is out

4:50

there and it's a really hot topic. Yeah, I think, look,

4:52

I think I haven't read the book

4:55

and I think, look, I think anything

4:57

not in moderation is a problem. Do

4:59

I think alcohol should have been banned all over the world

5:01

as it has through the history time? I

5:04

think the world has proven maybe,

5:06

maybe not, but probably not. It's

5:08

meaning anything, sugar.

5:11

Sugar is a problem if you consume

5:13

too much of it. So, you

5:16

know, without knowing what the details of the book

5:18

are, if he's saying being

5:21

on your cell phone 15 hours

5:23

a day constantly has some

5:25

ramifications, of course, my

5:28

argument's a little bit different, which is I

5:31

think we have a parenting pandemic. That's

5:34

interesting, I mean, you know, because let me just jump

5:37

in to say very simple. When people

5:39

stop me at the airport because they know I talk

5:41

about social media, they're like, Gary, this

5:43

is a real problem. My 14

5:45

year old is on Snapchat all day. It's a

5:47

real problem. The easiest answer of

5:49

any question I have is that. I

5:52

look them in the face and say, then be a parent.

5:56

Take it away. Delete the app. Moderate

5:59

your choice. Like I

6:01

think that there are probably enormous amounts

6:03

of points in that book that I

6:05

agree with. What I'm

6:07

fascinated by is that

6:10

we are in a generation of

6:12

parenting that is not willing to

6:15

have children face consequences and ramifications

6:17

for their actions. And I think

6:19

that's our issue. Going

6:23

with that, doesn't every generation say that about the

6:25

generation that falls it and vice versa? Yes,

6:28

I think social media is amateur hour compared

6:30

to what kids in 25 years are gonna be

6:32

doing. And in terms of accountability though, shouldn't,

6:36

we shouldn't necessarily absolve big tech either though,

6:38

in that same breath. Or maybe you just,

6:41

I don't know. No, no, I fully agree.

6:43

My argument is we are always

6:45

talking about big tech. We're talking about

6:47

regulation all the time. Why aren't we

6:49

talking about parents that don't have any

6:51

parenting skills? I think our issue is parenting.

6:55

I don't think that Google or Facebook

6:57

should get a free pass. I think

6:59

parenting's getting a free pass. Point

7:02

well taken. TikTok

7:05

is still very hot around the

7:07

world, right? Yes. Shows

7:09

no sign of slowing down, except of course

7:12

for the regulators. Yes. What

7:14

are you telling content creators right now? And frankly,

7:17

not just content creators, those who enjoy TikTok as

7:19

it faces the potential ban. It's a long road

7:22

to being banned in the US. How

7:24

do people hedge their bets? I think

7:27

anybody who relies on TikTok

7:29

for their career that

7:32

isn't building out presence on

7:34

YouTube, Shorts, on

7:36

Snap Spotlight, on Facebook, Instagram,

7:40

that's just not smart.

7:43

This goes back to my love affair with

7:45

accountability. What am I telling them? That

7:47

they should be diversifying. But they should be

7:50

diversifying even if there was no ban in

7:52

front. Tila Tequila dominated

7:54

MySpace. If she dominated YouTube

7:57

and Twitter and Facebook, which.

8:00

was the obvious thing to do at the time, she

8:03

would have been more relevant and had more opportunity

8:05

for a longer period of time. Forget

8:07

about bands, four years ago, I was yelling at the

8:09

top of my lungs on 500 pieces

8:12

of content per month, get on TikTok, get

8:14

on TikTok, get on TikTok. Tons

8:17

of Instagram only content creators did not

8:19

do that and they lost

8:22

their market share. So to me,

8:24

when Seinfeld's the number one show

8:26

on television, you run commercials on

8:28

it. And

8:30

when it no longer is, you run commercials somewhere else. That's

8:33

basically what I'm telling everyone here, build

8:35

attention everywhere so that you're not vulnerable.

8:39

What do you make of X right now? It's

8:42

been a tumultuous few years. Yup. Elon

8:44

Musk, I think it's safe to say, his

8:47

decisions have created a sort of

8:49

mercurial platform. What

8:51

do you make of it? It's not the same Twitter

8:53

it used to be. Or X, sorry. Yeah, you know

8:55

what's funny? I

8:59

mean, it's the same Twitter X it's been for a

9:01

while. From

9:03

my point of view, as someone who studies it pretty hard, it's

9:06

not so remarkably different than,

9:09

the only difference is he's actually doing things with

9:11

it. If you're talking about

9:13

it's contentious, every

9:16

town hall is always contentious. It's

9:19

been the internet's town hall. It was, I

9:22

mean, I was living in Twitter in 2008. Let

9:25

me make this very clear for everyone. It

9:27

was contentious in there. Obama,

9:29

McCain, contentious. Like it's

9:32

contentious when you allow everyone

9:34

to talk to each other and everyone in the

9:36

world sees the world differently. The

9:39

only difference I see really genuinely

9:41

is that I'm more curious than

9:44

ever what might happen of it. Meaning, will

9:47

they bring back Vine? Will it be a

9:49

streaming service? There's been a lot more feature

9:51

work. Like Twitter stayed the same for a

9:53

long time. Listen, Elon

9:56

is far from not controversial.

10:00

But I think that

10:02

people, I think

10:04

sometimes get clouded by their feelings

10:06

to Elon, pro-Wencon by the way. I

10:10

think the platform, people debating

10:12

and not being nice to each other

10:14

happened long before Elon bought it. For

10:17

social media platforms across the board right now, there seems

10:19

to be a little bit of saturation. Would you start

10:21

a new social platform right now? Because a couple of

10:23

bit in the dust, there was post news, which was

10:26

a media darling for a while and they were gonna

10:28

be the place, Twitter alternative, that went, could put. It

10:31

seems a little bit saturated, but. Look,

10:34

I think we're in, I think I'm very

10:36

comfortable in saying this. Every four to seven

10:38

years, something's got a real shot. That's been

10:40

the history. I'm using history as a predictor.

10:43

Would I go for it? Sure, because if you

10:46

hit it, it's as lucrative as it gets. You

10:49

know, but are you saying that it's, that

10:51

99.9% of social media networks that

10:54

attempt to become a network are gonna fail? I

10:56

agree. What's the biggest misconception people

10:58

have about artificial intelligence? That's not even the thrust of

11:00

this podcast, this podcast series, but I would be remiss

11:02

if I didn't ask you that, because it is everywhere.

11:04

It's on the tip of every tongue. That

11:07

it's more similar to

11:09

the internet itself than let's

11:12

say some other feature. It is such a

11:14

big technology. It's an

11:16

inevitable outcome in our society. You don't put

11:18

the genie back in the bottle with technology.

11:21

And I think the biggest misconception is it's

11:23

gonna kill jobs when in

11:25

fact, it's gonna create tons of jobs.

11:29

So everyone was mad at the tractor because it eliminated

11:31

all the jobs in the farm, only

11:33

allowing us humans to go do more

11:36

profound things. AI is

11:38

going to, do I believe AI is going

11:40

to eliminate jobs? You betcha. Do

11:42

I think it's also gonna create jobs

11:44

and opportunities for people that we can't even think

11:47

of? I do. So I think

11:49

people have decided, and this goes with social

11:51

media as well, social media and AI

11:53

sit in a very similar place with the

11:55

world's feelings right now, which is people choose

11:57

cynicism. People choose negativity.