Wed, 26 November 2014
#QOTD: What weaknesses of yours are you giving thanks for? And be honest. This will help you. |
Mon, 24 November 2014
#QOTD: What wine are you pairing with your Thanksgiving dinner? |
Wed, 19 November 2014
#QOTD: Watch this on video and guess how many almonds are in the jar next to me. Whoever guesses it right will be flown out to NYC to join me on a taping of the #AskGaryVee show!! It's funny to hear that people are referring to cellphones and other mobile devices as the "second screen." As far as I'm concerned, in this DVR'd world we live in, most of us are on our phones, scrolling through our feeds as commercials, and sometimes the actual TV shows, are being ignored. I'm pretty certain we're at a moment in time where our mobile devices are indeed our 'first' screen of choice. When it comes to retail though, it makes sense that we refer to our phones as the "second screen" because it certainly holds true that our eyeballs serve as the 'first screen' when we're walking around. What's really resonated with me recently with retail is how people are behaving when they're out and about and shopping around. People are literally IGNORING the promotional end-caps that brands spend tons of money on, simply because they're too distracted by their phones. Although this may sound like a wasted opportunity, I see it as the future of in-store marketing. This has been a hot topic of discussion over the last few years -- how phones and other devices will play a role in our shopping experiences -- and is something I'm very interested in. Brands need to start being more conscious of how we're using our devices in our everyday interactions. With the advent of ApplePay and the beginning phases of beacon sensors, there's no question that our in-store purchasing behaviors will be highly influenced by those shiny little devices we seem to never be at an arms-length distance from.
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Tue, 18 November 2014
#QOTD: What's the last app you downloaded? The humanization of business. Manners of Marketing. Thank You Economy. They're all same. Now that the Internet has allowed consumers to have more control, businesses are expected to behave differently and interact with their communities in a way that humanizes their messaging. Unfortunately however, brands haven't fully embraced the mindset that I thought would have been exhausted by now. My prediction with the Thank You Economy was that by 2015 everybody would be on board. Unfortunately, that is not the case. People just haven't adopted it at scale and therefore how can it really be over? Nobody's ruined it. This might actually take forever or never happen at all although I know that those practicing it are getting real results. I see those emails every day. And so, my prediction was incredibly off. It just may never happen at scale because companies can be heartless. Heck, even I'm heartless when it comes to money. I know that business is all about the wallet and I get that, but there's a real financial benefit with TYE mentality. I see the dividends with it each and every day. People are STILL flabbergasted when a company reaches out to them with a half-assed approach, and so I know that the potential is still there, but I'm utterly confused as to how it hasn't been fully adopted yet. It's 2015, people! |
Thu, 13 November 2014
#QOTD: Just show me some love!! Everything trickles from the top. For a long time I used to talk about the "rich-kid syndrome" and how they didn't have it in them to hustle their way to building a sustainable business. What I've learned, however, is that this doesn't apply to everybody. When it comes to business, like anything else in life, it all stems from the top. Just like a business' culture stems from its leaders, the way a child sees the world and their approach to life all comes from how they were brought up. When I meet with these "rich kids" I spend almost all my time trying to figure out what their past was like. How did their parents raise them? Did they spoil them or did they make them work for what they wanted? And so, this really has nothing to do with the kids themselves but more so about who their parents were and how they decided to pass on the family legacy. I know that my kids are going to be "rich kids" but that doesn't mean I'm going to spoil them. I'm not going to let them become soft and I will most certainly let them know what it means to work and sweat for something that they want, because I know that it's up to me to instill those qualities within them from the onset.
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Tue, 11 November 2014
As a teacher and any professional looking to expand their personal brand, my advice remains the same -- Cut out the crap, stop wasting time on non-important things, and hustle to build your brand. If you want to build a more scalable brand you need to put out content. Utilize the technology around you like SlideShare, Spreecast, and Google Hangouts which allow you to further establish your credibility, and where you can also charge people for participating if they're willing to do so. Use your content as a gateway to drug to allow you to further establish yourself and your brand. What I really see here is that people are just loaded with excuses. Do you really want to build your brand or do you want to watch 'Homeland?' Do you really need to take that hour long lunch? LUNCH? C'mon!! There's better ways to use our time. I'm not saying you shouldn't eat, but do you really need that much time for lunch?!? As with anything in life, you just need to figure out your cadence. What do you really want? Are you wasting your time by doing things that aren't allowing you to achieve the levels you want? If you really want to expand your brand, start putting out content, engage with people that may be interested in what you have to offer, cold call, and do whatever else it takes, even if that means having two hours less of sleep. |
Mon, 10 November 2014
#QOTD: How long have you been following my work? |
Thu, 6 November 2014
#QOTD: Want to win a dinner with me? I need you to predict how many episodes of the #AGV show we'll wind up producing once this is all said and done. Those that guess right will be selected to have dinner with me. Deal?
They way I prioritize my time is by making the best judgment call possible in that particular moment in time. I frame my process by selecting two sides of the spectrum: What's the most on fire and needs to be tended to immediately, and what are the more high-level ideas that I can work on and flesh out? I'll take care of things like employee issues or client concerns (the biggest and most time-sensitive problems) and balance it by going on the offense on the things with the biggest upside, like company culture, visions for the future, buying the Jets ;), etc. I never focus on anything in the middle. VaynerNation, I warn you, the MIDDLE is DANGEROUS. Stay away. |
Tue, 4 November 2014
#QOTD: How bad you want to work at VaynerMedia? |
Mon, 3 November 2014
#QOTD: Let me know what the next 3-5 years look like for your business. What do you have planned? What are you looking to accomplish?
Micro-Content is the idea of making content specific to the context of a platform. It's the idea of utilizing videos and pictures, quotes, and written words that work specifically for the multitude of platforms that exist (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Vine, Pinterest, Snapchat, etc) -- which if I might add, was the context behind my latest book, Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook ;) So, how do you make good micro-content? First of all, content is subjective. It depends on the viewer and why they're in particular place at a particular point in time. I understand that a 40 year old woman will have a different mindset when she's on Pinterest vs. Facebook. Does she have intent to shop (Pinterest) or is she just catching up with her world (Facebook)? That's how you need to focus on your story-telling strategy. You need to be mindful of the psychology behind the user's intent and the nuances of the platform. When creating micro-content, or content in general, you also need to respect the user and their tendencies. Of course you want to sell your products, but you need to portray them in way that's more compelling to the viewer. You need to shape it their interests and lifestyle. There are plenty of targeting strategies out there, and there's no one way to execute. The only things you can hone in on while forming your strategy are: 1. Respecting the audience 2. Respecting the platform 3. Making your agenda fall third to #1 & #2
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