On this episode, we talk about bookstore marketing,
hashtags, and recycling content.
You ask questions and I answer them.
This is the #AskGaryVee show.
Hey everybody, this is Gary Vay-ner-chuk and this is
episode 68 of the #AskGaryVee show.
I'm on a little bit of a roll, three in a row.
We started 2015 very bumpy, and by the way, if we're
lucky enough to continue this show into 2016 we will start
that very bumpy, and '17 has January between CES, Sundance,
the Super Bowl, I do two or three speeches every year
in January.
People are trying to pump up their company,
or do things right.
January's always a little tricky.
The whole first four months is tricky.
As you can tell, not as many peeps in the background
this morning, a little early here to pump out #AskGaryVee.
Devoted to the VaynerNation, I appreciate you guys.
What else do I want to talk about?
By the way, the two videos, I'm going to link them up again, DRock
I'm sorry, but just feeling the Twitter video and obviously,
you've seen the organic starting point for the
One Is Greater Than Zero so people are really
appreciating that video.
Let's get into the show.
- [Voiceover] Abram asks, "How do you optimize the use
of hashtags for campaigns?
Hashtag."
- Abram, this is a great question.
I think we can get very detailed for the VaynerNation
on this.
Hashtag culture is very very important specifically
to Instagram and Twitter.
Let's start there.
That is really the two places it is massive
and on some level, Pinterest as well.
Less on Facebook.
Tumblr, for a while there it was very very important.
Snapchat, not at all.
LinkedIn, not really.
We're really talking Twitter and Instagram,
first and foremost.
There's another question that's going to be on the episode,
in a couple of questions where the guy used 17, 18 hashtags
as his entire post.
I think hashtags are an incredible way to get discovered,
I think it's important to think about it two ways.
I think you're asking, how do I get my hashtag going, right?
I think.
Even if not, by answering that it's going to help
a lot of people here.
I have the #AskGaryVee hashtag, #AskGaryVee,
Gary Vee Show I use on Instagram and Twitter.
I'm really just using that for fans that are looking
to go down the rabbit hole more than getting it away
for awareness.
You're saying for a campaign, and I think people really need
to understand a couple of things.
Number one, hashtags are not ownable.
Let's just, I'm going for, podcast listeners,
I'm going for a big dramatic pause here.
You should have seen the way I reacted.
I'm going to do it again.
It's important that you understand this.
It is insane to me that people in 2015 still think
they can own a hashtag.
I walk into tons of meetings where the brand's like,
let's own the hashtag #GetEm.
I'm like, what the hell are you talking about?
First and foremost, any hashtag you can create,
tomorrow I can jump in and make a hashtag.
We can remember all the way to the infamous 2008 or '9 time
when Skittles put out that hashtag and then people started
putting things that were very crude against it,
because Skittles homepage was a filter and a stream
of everybody using the hashtag and then, you know,
body parts and rude and crude things started showing up
on their corporate page because there is no ownability
around a hashtag.
My answer is this, flip it.
Instead of trying to own or establish a hashtag
for a campaign, look at the hashtags that are trending
and very popular on the two main platforms already
and try to figure out how to reverse into them
by putting out your piece of content, storytelling, and then
using three or four hashtags that are riding the wave.
I wrote about this a million years ago,
riding the wave of a hashtag.
One of my first Mediums, I think.
That's the answer.
Reverse it, don't try to establish one,
ride the wave of four or five that are working,
that tie in and be creative into what you're putting out.
- [Voiceover] Leonard asks, "You've talked before
about recycling a tweet.
How about other content such as a blog post?
How often do you pull a piece from the archives, dust it off
and republish?"
- Leonard, a great question.
As a matter of fact, you know what, India, this is something
we should actually probably consider outright
and look back at my old Viddler videos.
I saw one that came up the other day that has clearly not
been transcribed to YouTube, because somebody popped up,
I thought it was interesting.
My own little spiel there, sorry Leonard.
Let me answer your question.
I don't do it often, but I've never had, India,
Steve's not here, we had a wine event last night.
Some people can't hang.
I haven't done it a lot, though what my team here is helping
me do is make better pieces of content on current thoughts
and, I think a lot of you have noticed, I use the
#AskGaryVee show now as a platform to have a show,
and then India, DRock, Staphon, the rest of the team are looking
for nuggets within it to then form bigger pieces of content.
Right now I'm using this show as, let's call it the core
and then satellite content, the written word content,
the infographics, the slide shares, the animated gifs
and these really amazing two three four minute movie types
that these guys are banging out, are a byproduct of it.
You just spurred, that's why I just yapped with India,
the idea that we maybe need to look back at some of the
2007 '8 '9 '10 classic stuff and maybe put a new, you know.
Maybe we go through a hardcore 2.0 thing, right?
Stop doing stuff you hate, 2.0.
Though I've updated Lost, and use Breaking Bad or something.
What did we use?
Yeah, House of Cards, that's good.
I think it's massively important that people look back at
their old content and more importantly, I believe in context
and timing of it.
Unless it's evergreen, I don't know what that was.
Time, and so I would say what might be more important
my friend is how do you take a piece of content that you
put out today, and then produce six or seven versions
of that thought across the platforms, in a very jab jab jab
right hook standpoint where it's like, show it.
DRock, show it, come on, it's beautiful.
In respecting the context, so infographic for Pinterest,
animated gif for Tumblr, that would be what
I'd most focus on.
- [Voiceover] From Josh, "Hi Gary.
If you were going to market a brick and mortar bookshop,
where would you start?"
- So Josh, first of all, this is a great question.
Second of all, I really appreciate the love you've given me.
Obviously you put Thank You Economy in one of your,
your Instagram's tremendous.
Obviously the question was posted, so if you guys
could catch his name or slow it down, go back and watch it,
go check out his Instagram.
I think your Instagram is really tight.
I've always said that marketing doesn't fix
your shit product.
Now after being such a great guy, you're like,
crap, where's he going with this?
Being a bookstore in the traditional sense of the word
is over, right?
There's something called Amazon, it's chipping away,
it's just starting.
Let me say that one more time because I think
people are confused. It's just starting.
The corrosion of people going to bricks and mortar for books
has been on like Donkey Kong, in an iPad, Kindle,
and Amazon world.
I think if I was to buy 17 bookstores at a bankruptcy,
and I had to do it, what I would do is I would turn them
into a live events space where bookselling was
the secondary aspect of it.
I would turn it into a coffee shop, I would turn it into
a coworking space, I would turn it into an events spot.
I would turn the physical, and the fun part is, guys,
and this is a little preview, I'm getting my hands into
Wine Library a little bit, Wine Library's second floor
that has a lot of square footage, I'm about to turn
into an events space.
I'm eating my own dogfood on this one.
I would say the content you're putting out on the 'Gram,
and I didn't have time to look at everything else
you're doing, is really strong.
But as you can imagine, is that going to make somebody want
to buy a book from you, for 30 to 70 percent more?
Yeah, hippies like India, show her.
She would do that, right?
But that is a very, no, loving books is one thing, India.
Going and spending 70 percent more, I can see you, because
I know you a little bit, maybe doing that once in a while.
Actually, do you buy your books from Amazon?
- No, I buy my books from Alexander book company.
Yay! Shameless plug!
- You know.
(laughs)
I think that there are some hipsters out there, but they're
not going to drive your bottom line, right?
That's the anomaly, not the standard.
I've done this show for a little while now, and I would say
that India and Staphon's head nodding as I was giving
that answer was a really good indication that we're barking
up the right tree here.
I would sell 30 to 50 percent less books to clear up
the square footage, within the store, no matter how big
you are, 100 square feet, 1000 square feet,
5000 square feet, to really activate the physical location
and find other ways and means to make dollars,
because I think bookselling within a bricks and mortar needs
to be the secondary income, not the first play.
I think that's something people need to wrap
their head around.
By the way, real quick, don't finish the editing.
That is pretty much my theory on retail, period.
Multi use, events, experiential,
McDonalds, a lot of people
talking about McDonalds.
I think they need to triple down on the playground thesis,
right?
I mean, I don't know.
People have got to realize, retail's in a very new place.
- Just leaving this message because you wanted
some feedback.
Just got out of the gym training
for a strongman competition.
Shameless self promotion for my startup company,
HaggleChimp.com.
Here's my big question, how do I overcome
my people pleasing nature?
- That's an easy answer.
You don't.
You've been told by society and your homies
that it is your weakness, and I will tell you
that it is your strength.
What your weakness is is that you don't know how
to throw a right hook.
I am all people pleasing cultured nature,
and I'm building my entire empire on it.
As a matter of fact, my new, I've been talking about
the bridge or the contradiction as my autobiography, but now
the big book that I want to write is The Human Empire.
How to build an empire of good feelings with good people,
and that kind of thing.
I think what you're in is you're stuck
in the jab jab jab jab jab business.
My intuition based on your question is, it's not about
fixing your people, as a matter of fact I'd triple down on that.
I want 34 more jabs from you, but where you are missing
the boat is going in for the right hook.
You need to grow a sack and ask for the biz.
- [Voiceover] Jason asks, "As a B2B manufacturer
of building products, how much time and money should we
spend on marketing to consumers versus customers?
Or am I better off trying to brand myself as an expert
and a resource, and let people figure out what we can do
to add value?"
- Jason, first of all, DRock, let's put the picture back right now
and let's circle the cow.
I'm scared crapless of that cow.
Just wanted to get that out there.
Completely scared.
I think you've got an answer.
You know, it's funny, a lot of times people say to me that
I lead the question in business meetings.
I'm asking a question but really I'm just trying to make you
tell me what I want to hear.
You just did that.
Yes, the answer's yes.
You should become the expert.
Put out content with scary ass cows, and dominate,
and put it out there and let it be a gateway drug
and breadcrumb to what you're doing.
That's it, man, content rules the world.
It just does.
I just thought of Lauryn Hill, did it sound like Lauryn Hill
when I said content rules the world?
I don't know, it felt a little.
Anyway.
I think that that is the way to go about it.
I'm a big fan of becoming the honey and letting the bees
come to you, and I think that that is what great content
is today.
Watching Tony Robbins retweet yesterday's
One Is Greater Than Zero video, and then seeing the new CMO
of Hyatt reply to it because she saw it from Tony,
and then seeing the President of Cinnabon respond to her
because of her reaction, is word of mouth content marketing
social media execution 2015.
Bitches.
Question of the day,
that cow scared the shit out of me.
What animal scares the crap out of you?
You keep asking questions, I'll keep answering them.
I'd triple down on that.
I want 34 more jabs from you, but where you are missing
the boat is going in for the right hook and so you need
to grow a sack and ask for the biz.
(laughter)