If you just post something on a video to talk about something that's going on in business, that's fine. If you take a headline from your own article, you then take that article and you take it into a green screen on social and you talk over it. That format will get you three, four, five times more viewers. It's strategic organic content.

Joining me today is: Gary Vaynerchuk who is a Serial entrepreneur and serves as the chairman of media Conglomerate Vayner X the CEO of Media Agency Vaynermedia and a Creator and CEO of Nft Project. Be friends. He's also the co-founder of Rezi which he sold to American Express in 2019 and as an angel investor to some companies you may have heard of like Facebook Twitter and Snapchat you may have seen them as Garyvee online where he documents his life as a CEO on social Media where he has more than 44 million followers across various platforms. Gary Hi, welcome to Abu Dhabi Thanks for being here, Thanks for having me thanks for talking to me.

So that was a lot in their media Social media. Nfts just at the top. I Would have talked to you about all of those things, but I Kind of just want to get the sense that you're thinking these days on the state of just consumer culture. Yeah, the head of Media Agency Consumer Culture is your bread and butter.

What are people wanting these days? I Mean there's so many things. I Think Our hypothesis. My hypothesis has always been based on context and relevance over awareness of awareness. Meaning, you know you could know that Coca-Cola exists but can Coca-Cola get you to care? and so what? I think in Fortune 500 land Starbucks Nikes BMW I Think a lot about this question from the context of consumers want relevance.

You know they want to see something from these brands that makes them feel something or consider them at a small business. and Creator level it's the same. We build Our Brands and our awareness from relevance. We're unable to run a Super Bowl commercial, so we have to win on the Battle of putting out 40 50 pieces of social media content a day across seven or eight different platforms.

So that's what I think people are looking for. So to win it involves prodigious output free content if you're small and it's about relevance. But when you talk about output on social media, where are you seeing companies actually getting it wrong? You know I would argue the bigger the company the more wrong they are right. Um, it just is.

the hot take all right, that's a headline. What are some examples that you're seeing? Well, I would tell you that you know again to put into context for the listeners: Vaynerx Vaynermedia my marketing company. We work globally APAC Uh Europe Latam Us: Um, we're we're recording here in the Middle East not for kicks and Giggles we'll be here and we'll be in Africa and we'll be in Brazil will be everywhere And when I look at around the world what happens is the bigger you are, the more you treat social media, the way you treated television and billboards and print. And what's happening is it's just all vanilla and there's not enough output.

So what are companies getting wrong? They don't have enough output. They don't live under the context of strategic content. They just post for the sake of posting. They don't factor in what is our religion, which is something we call pack platforms and culture.

If you don't know that Carousel ads are over indexing right on right now on. Instagram you're not going to post them. So if you don't know the platforms, the out. Not just the algorithm that everybody likes to talk about, but even ones ability to take advantage of all the different creative formats.

A green screen right in your line of work. If you just post something on a video to talk about something that's going on in business, that's fine. If you take a headline from your own article, you write an article. You then take that article and you take it into a green screen on social and you talk over it.

I'm sure everybody who's listening right now. if they have social media have seen a human talk over a green screen of an article, that format will get you three, four, five times more viewers at the end. It's strategic organic content. What we call sock is the biggest elephant in the room right now.

So where do influencers play into this conversation in terms of output and content? Where is the content coming from? Well, to even add to that, I'll answer that. But where influencers are playing a role is they're the ones who are more native to understanding the creative strategy. They have no choice. They don't honor day copywriter.

They're the modern day. Where do they fit into the agent? Oh well. They to me, they're competitive to the agency model. They're additive to the agency model.

They are the future agency owners. That's what I came from I was making wine content. Today we are going to visit the wonderful and interesting world of Pinot Grigio and realize this actually scales for every business in the world. Let me start.

An agency Vaynermedia is literally, besides widening Kennedy the largest global independent agency that's been created in the last 40 years that came from a content creator. That's who. I was Yes, I was a retailer. Yes, I was an e-commerce retailer.

But at the end of the day, the only reason I parade into Madison Avenue was because I spent a half a decade winning on content and was realizing it was outperforming my print radio, direct mail, and television advertising. And so how is content evolving? So when I was I Actually, my first job out of college was at an ad agency Separate story, but it was the time of native advertising inbound marketing. We were on the HubSpot DNA yes the word early client of HubSpot and um, talking about just generating this death by content. Well, awesome website.

Build as much articles Win! SEO Have them come to you. So where are we now? the social media version apt In the conversation: where is this? where are we going? Well, that's a different thing, but to I'll answer both of those one. we are in the social media version of what the website version of inbound marketing was 15 years ago. So it is a volume game, but you know you probably learned this at the time I don't know how long you were there, but what people learned in writing SEO and articles was.

Yes, it'd be awesome if you wrote 50, but it'd be a heck of a lot better if you wrote 13 great ones than 50 bad ones right? When I say make a lot of content If you make 13 horrible pieces of social media content, there's only so much good that can come of that, right? It's better than one horrible piece of content. But the reality is, you have to be good at it. As far as chat GPD is, we are in the pre-dawn of Scaled AI making a huge impact on copy and creative. I Think for us personally at Vayner and me personally, the trademark and copyright aspect of all of this is a very big elephant in the room and so we can't use it yet for our clients.

If God forbid there's a lawsuit and the creative kid, you know, so we have to be careful. Really cite your sources. You can't You can't And and what a lot of people in your line of work are worried about is it's an it's a new Google all over again, right? It's going to index everything and take it for itself and not create any economics or cite any credit to the sources. This is a major major Hornet's Nest That's going to be figured out probably over the next five to 15 years, but the reality is, the technology is not going back in the Genie bottle.

This is here and it will be here. I Think it actually is going to collide quite a bit with uh, decentralized servers? Yeah. I Want to pump the brakes on decentralized for one second because I want to talk to you? The last time the national spoke to you, it was on Nfts? yes and it does feel like the shine the bloom is off the rose on NFC South by Southwest was last week. yes, uh, talking.

Tech and culture? Yes. and if Keys won't really mentioned Meta just made headlines, they're shuttering their Nft efforts. Be friends. Is your effort in this space? Yes, What are you thinking? You know I'm thinking what? I thought nine months ago when I made 50 to 100 pieces of content.

That said, 99 of these things are going to go to zero because what happened was what happened with late 90s internet stocks then there. then they were stocks. this time they were Collectibles But the same thing happened. Everyone got way too gold rushy, everybody cared about greed instead of building, and you had way too much hysteria.

and so what you had was a scenario that was inevitable. which was the macro. technology is profound. I'm more bullish on Nfts today than I was a year ago.

but the individual projects that were built a year ago were built for short-term financial reasons, not for long-term reality. So for me, when I built V-friends almost two years ago, I'm like I'm gonna build Pokemon meet Sesame Street and this is going to take me the rest of my life. I Think that that's a very different point of view on it so that that was my take. I Think the really interesting part is smart contract I Think decentralized servers that create Providence are going to become a very important element in an AI world.

I think I'm hearing your uh, your wine Heritage meeting up with you or it's true, your blockchain. that's a very smart inheritance. That's a very smart observation. The provenance thing really matters.

It's like Vineyard Source It's I learned a lot in the wine business that ironically impacts creating value a hundred percent. So value in the wine world is all about provenance. It's all about the year, the timeliness. When you look at things like Nfts, you do think you can create value by being able to cite with but really strong.

Fidelity Where something comes from only if people want to. Yeah, Like What people don't understand is only one percent of comic books are sought after. Only one percent of sports cards are sought after. Only one percent of sneakers are sought after.

So when humans collect, they only collect a very small subset of the overall genre. So art is no different than Nfts. Sports cards are no different than Nfts. Comics are no different than Nfts.

The problem was last year, people clumped Nfts. As all Nfts, that would be like saying every piece of art is going to go up in value instead of just Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol. So yes, I believe that Nfts are going to be a collectible in perpetuity because I know how people collect. it's already clear.

And by the way, in this huge winter that is so atrocity and like it's all over, there's a normity of collectible going on. There's an enormity of money being pushed. and by the way, SVP Bank goes down and look what happens. People take a step back and say huh.

Maybe something that's decentralized that can't be. You know impacted is something I may want to look at and so you know I Think there's still a lot of change and things to think through. but what happened was super predictable and I'm not. Monday Morning quarterbacking at the height of it in August and September I went on a rampage to make sure that people were being thoughtful and unfortunately, people are real.

You know we're at a real estate conference right now. It happens in real estate. It happens on Wall Street It happens in Collectibles When it's going good, people become delusional and greedy. and that's just human nature, so you predict it will be durable.

Yeah, it's like this day, a hundred percent. but again, the oh, of course the macro technology is profound. When everybody wrote articles that the internet was a fad in 2000 because all the stocks collapsed because they were overvalued by Wall Street That didn't make the internet less important that Wall Street was greedy today. The same thing's happening with Nfts, so you like to dispense advice.

So I want to ask you if you're into dispense advice. Now on the Nft chat: GPT Metaverse: This kind of space of Frontier technology and you're a small business owner. What moves? What? What are the smart moves right now in these spaces? Is it smart to move in these as an SMB Probably not. Other than education, you know you have to be very thoughtful with your monies when you're an SMB And so first of all, it goes back to the first part of the conversation: what every small business on Earth from every corner of the earth needs to figure out is a very smart, organic social media strategy.

It is disproportionately the biggest impact on their bottom line when it comes to at least marketing and demand creation. As far as Frontier attack, it's good to keep an eye on it. It's good to be ready. It's good to flirt with it.

Education is very powerful. so I think people should know about it. but I think Frontier Tech is something that is incredibly high risk. More importantly, it's never at the scale that people want it to be, but it's important to pay attention and get your hands dirty in it so you are prepared sometimes.

I Think about okay, uh, this Shoshana Zuba book surveillance Capitalism kind of coin. that term this idea of the attention economy the infinite scroll we kind of all find ourselves in. You're a real creature of the infinite scroll you you live and die. Yes, By by that, how do you stay? I Think the other side of the coin on this social media economy that we've built is surveillance Capitalism is this kind of Darker more nefarious way of thinking about it and there are real privacy concerns in like societal implications.

I Guess what I want to ask you is how do you stay motivated in that space? Do you ever have second thoughts on where we're headed I Stay motivated because I'm incredibly optimistic on the human race I I Think that you don't look at internet culture and think, oh my gosh, yikes, you're you're a big celebrant of it. I'm much more excited about it than what happened pre-internet culture like you know. I Think what's important is to understand what are we demonizing and what are we scared of. So to me, privacy is controllable.

so like if somebody's listening right now and they're like I'm really no way Gary you're so wrong. I'm like delete the apps don't have an iPhone like I Love the concept of accountability like an opt-in or opto, but it's becoming decreasingly possible to opt out as you're making this. I would actually argue the other way. I Think there's micro trends of people opting out more than ever I think it was harder seven years ago to opt out than today I Think it's cooler to opt out now I Think people are leaning into knowing their options and I think people are finding their calibration of balance like the amount of parents that like, stop me in the middle screen saying Tick Tock and I'm like, then delete it off your kid's phone.

like the lack of accountability and the lack of understanding how much control humans actually have I Think people have absolutely opted in to this depressive state that America or China or Tick Tock or meta or Mark Zuckerberg controls them I I Think it's a cop-out I Think it's because accountability has come out of favor and I don't I'm not worried about it at all, not worried about it. Okay, so last question: dispensing advice to people. can I add one point. Yeah, it would be the same.

You know there was a there's a couple other things I think a lot about I think about America Banning alcohol. They thought that that would solve the problem like to me Banning Or stopping or being scared is never the problem. It's understanding how to use everything. A car is dangerous if you don't know how to use it.

A bottle of gin is dangerous if you don't know how to use it. Sugar is dangerous if you don't know how to use it. I Think we need education and conversation. but I think ultimately, it's about accountability.

Do you bear responsibility to do more education on these things? Or does that is that a space somebody else should occupy? You know? I I think I do it all the time. I'm doing it right now with you. Yeah, But my problem is that most people ride waves so hard that I'm doing it right now. I think I'm when I'm answering.

hey, have you ever considered accountability I think I'm doing way more public service right now than saying we should ban this And we should ban that. This is a major pandemic. Of the last 30 years, the world has fallen in love with Pointing Fingers. It's your fault.

Your media. It's my fault. I'm Social media. Why are we not into thumbs? Well my, my question really was how do you stay motivated in a landscape? That's that's yelling at you until and pointing fingers.

How do you stay? How do you get up every morning and kind of get back? get back on the horse? Because I have no attachment to the validation and or the tearing down. See One of the great things when you don't believe in your own headlines is you don't believe in the trolling either. when you were actually in a state of doing things for yourself. and what makes you happy, not the addiction of the validation, of the likes, or the treachery of being torn down, you're in a much better place.

I'm motivated because I'm detached, right? A stoic. A stoic life depend on it. I Don't know if I believe you that you're detached? Well I think that's only because you don't know me? Yeah, you know and which I respect. It's one of the reasons I Judge no one I don't know them Garyvee want to talk to you so much fun.

you know it's funny you you? We end with that. It's been the biggest thing of like how to your point like how does one sustain when there's so much going on? it's you know for me it's um that whole validation or Detachment it's kind of like my sports teams I like love the process of a team winning a championship. yeah but once they do I'm like out and so like when the Yankees and the Rangers won their championships I stopped cheering for them and I never understood it when I was a kid but as I've gotten older I'm like ah it's fun for me the winning, the wins and the losses you need to feel. Yeah, just I just like that I like the trying yeah more than like the outcome.

Well I mean I asked you guys what I cover So I'm the future editor at the national which means I cover yeah and I find that the more I find out about this I think that I think I get that what I will tell you and this maybe will help you like get less stunting is like go read the articles about things that see Monday Now go read what they said about the television. I was gonna be a zombie machine right? It will start to feel more charming and less Sinister and nefarious. It's it's only because the in the we're in the moment now where people are demonizing technology. Yeah you know 10 years ago when you were working at up like that was the Golden Era that was all good and now we're in the all bad and the reality is it's always in the middle.

Yeah I don't know I Do think the visuals that we're using now are so much bigger and more sophisticated and are creating a feedback loop to you know, but but you'll appreciate this. everything's a feedback loop. Vogue Magazine was a feedback loop in 1987. Hmm, it was.

You know like I think I think that what we we struggle with is understanding that within context everything is that like? you know? Yeah, everything is forming opinion Walter Cronkite dictated what people thought at scale. It's really interesting. When you really like dig into this game. It's fascinating.

Yeah I just I don't know I think it's capacity to manipulate but your mom was manipulating you before right? like I get it? Like okay, but like we have always been manipulated by whatever we were consuming. And so the question is, is it better that it's the world or is it just a small group of people and that's always been the case. Yeah The more things change, the more they stay the same Of course. Yeah, yeah.

Awesome! Thank you so much Thanks for being an inspiration. Thank you Oh my Gosh! I'm very humble. Thank you Thank you! Cheers! Foreign Foreign.