(hip hop beat and piano)
- Just for context,
I also had a company which I eventually
folded into VaynerMedia called GrapeStory,
that I started with Jerome Jarre.
And around this space as well,
and it's just crazy to watch how much money
is being poured into influencer marketing.
Even a fun story for me is Logan Paul,
who obviously went on to build a huge career,
the way Logan Paul started his career was
my company GrapeStory,
actually, VaynerMedia and GrapeStory
we had Virgin Mobile as a client,
and we ran a campaign called,
Discovering the Next Vine Star.
Like that was the marketing campaign
and kids submitted.
And I was in my office, there was three pictures.
And I got to pick the finalist
and literally, that's how I picked Logan Paul
and that's how his career started.
He won a contest of a marketing campaign that we did
which is crazy to think about now.
But this space, for anybody here,
obviously a lot of you are familiar with it here.
But for the ones that aren't,
I don't think it's even remotely begun,
and so, obviously any questions we can answer,
thrilled to do it.
- [Man] How do you see influencer marketing
with B to B segment?
- I think it's very lucrative.
I think the biggest thing though
is a lot of the personalities,
if you look around, are focused more to B to C
and can run young.
But I mean, this is where,
I think influencer marketing has to be reframed
and understood as what it is which is reputation.
So, if you're a lawyer who happens to be really
versed in Blockchain,
and you happen to be a good communicator
on video or you love to write,
you going,
she or he going all in on LinkedIn videos
or written words can literally
can become the way we call it, influencer.
So I think the B to B space is very lucrative.
I think it plays out very heavily in LinkedIn
if you want to go there
and I think the economics are even more interesting
than on the consumer side, because
it can be very narrow.
And in our world, for a lot of us,
500 thousand, 100 thousand, 400 thousand,
3 million,
we're all competing for consumer.
But if you're in agriculture technology,
and you're a thought leader,
'cause you're putting out good content,
it doesn't have to be blowing up stuff or high energy,
just thoughtful and smart,
if you have 7,000 people following you
in a very small market,
you can be making hundreds of thousands of dollars
in speaking and branded content deals so
I think it's a very lucrative space.
- How you see that
brand safety in influencer marketing,
you have this
- Non-event.
It's a non-event.
The biggest companies in the world,
you know this
- You had something with Logan Paul
- Well, Logan
but you look at Logan Paul, right?
And we haven't
we never repped, actually we did rep him for six months.
The whole thing with him in Japan
and things of that nature,
sure, but like,
truth is, my big thing with brand safety
and brands is,
people forget.
People don't,
unless you do something like murder,
it takes so much for it to actually be an issue
to your business.
So, I think most brands realize that
that can happen with an
I promise you this,
athletes and movie stars get themselves into
more trouble so far than any influencers.
And so there's always a risk when you do
some sort of endorsement deal.
But, as we know, a one off with him or her,
is not necessarily you're the face,
you're not the face of the brand.
I think when you sign an A list celebrity
or B list athlete to be the face of the brand,
you feel a lot more brand safety issues
than a one off picture of
Happy Joe is delicious,
one time and then later I get a DUI four years from now,
that's not gonna be necessarily what the
brands worry about.
- [Man] How does it fly the other way around?
I mean, if,
and those who are,
say, teen YouTubers.
Bear with me, but I mean
if you're a teen YouTuber saying,
this is the best mascara in the world,
this is marketing.
But, if you are let's say
in B to B, and you go with a certain brand,
bad example, Clarion Hotels.
Whenever I travel.
Or if it's, hey I'm here at Clarion.
'Cause there are not that many brands
who want to work with you.
So brand safety from an influencer's
point of view. - Yeah, yeah.
- [Man] Let's talk about that.
- I mean, from my perspective it's
the balance of selling out.
To me, your audience is your number one asset.
So, you know,
any time you do something,
even when I ask to buy a pair of sneakers or book,
which by comparison to what I put out
and what I'm asking for in return,
I always know that I'm cashing in chips.
That I've changed the relationship at that moment.
And so, when you're a personality,
and you're putting out a product,
you're giving up some equity.
You have to decide if the money you're getting
is worth what
but I think if you're authentic in that
it's one thing that if it's authentic
to, maybe I've never drank this before,
but I'm okay endorsing it.
That can be authentic, it's not like I have to drink this
every day.
I think where people get caught is
when they're whoring out something every week.
And eventually the audience tunes them out
and then they've lost the asset that they have.
So I'm sure everybody can speak to that
here that's done it.
Everybody, I promise you this,
every influencer here thinks about the deal.
Right?
It's not like,
the answer is not blindly yes.
Ever.
Because you know that you're giving something up
for that money.
And I mean,
I have been an influencer since 2006
'cause of YouTube and Twitter
and have never done a single brand deal.
I always built other businesses
because I just knew that that was
not where I wanted to cash in,
'cause I knew the value of the end audience attention.
On the flip side, I highly encourage it,
and think it's a very good idea.
But it's something I'm sure everybody
thinks about a lot.
And you bring them deals, right?
- Yeah.
- So for him, just like for me.
Right, for him and the team,
they're like, take it!
Take it!
In the right way,
they obviously have to do a good job,
they believed in it.
If it got to them saying, hey bro,
take it, they believe it it.
But it's still up to him, her, him, him
to really be thoughtful 'cause it's
the only asset they have.
It's the same thing, where's the young man?
It's the algorithm.
It's the same thing as the algorithm.
All these influencers actually have
is the attention of the other person.
The only asset they own.
- But this way,
it's really important for influencers
build up the whole business,
that's it's not just based on the ads or brand deals.
You have to build new business
- I agree. - Around your brand.
- I agree.
The problem is, please.
- I got to
jump in the next
- Oh you wanna ask a question?
So let me just end this thought.
And this is why he's probably gonna build
a successful business.
The problem is, most influencers, not most.
It's very common for somebody who's creative
and can be a personality,
to not also be a phenomenal business person.
Right?
But to your point, I think where you're gonna
see enormous growth is in retail.
I think the big next step for influencers
is selling shit on Shopify and Amazon
and other platforms around the world.
So I think one of the biggest thing you'll
him selling green hair dye
as a legitimate business is something I see coming
every day.
So I think selling
- People are already doing that
- Oh, tons. - Logan Paul
- Logan Paul's making tens of millions of dollars
on hoodies. - Yeah, exactly.
- Tens.
Yeah, I believe in this quite a bit.
- Yeah, what are you thinking about investing money
on advertising in Instagram for your
- For influencers or for ads?
- For influencers, because
- All in.
(group laughs)
Believe in it.
A lot.
- I'm an influencer. - Yes.
- So should I put little bit money to
promote
- I see.
- Feeding like little amounts
because now everybody in Finland is
growing organic.
So should we start putting money
- To build your audience.
- Yeah, audience. - Yes.
- How much?
- As much as you can afford.
(laughs)
I believe it in a lot.
I'm spending tens of thousands of dollars a month.
And that, because the
- 'Cause it's underpriced.
It's gonna get more expensive.
- Yeah.
- And that's in Instagram?
Or YouTube as well? - Yes.
Instagram more than YouTube.
YouTube's more mature, and is properly priced.
Instagram I feel is underpriced.
Both on the Instagram ad product
- Underpriced.
- It's very underpriced.
I mean, everything in Finland's underpriced.
Facebook, YouTube, Instagram,
all of it's underpriced,
'cause the big companies in Finland
don't believe the attention is there
which is crazy, and the money's not
'cause it's a smaller market,
the money's not in there from the entrepreneurs
to the same level that we see in other
mature markets.
So, for all of you,
I would put as much as you can afford
back in, 'cause you're gonna get paid double over time.
- Yeah.
- Go ahead, go ahead.
- [Man] How about LinkedIn?
- LinkedIn has a floor.
LinkedIn's overpriced as an ad product.
But, valuable because of the nature of the audience.
So, if LinkedIn had an ad product similar to Instagram,
Facebook and Google, where there was no floor,
it started at one penny,
it would be the place I'd spent the most money on.
The most.
Because the value of the audience is
so business oriented, so money oriented,
so transactional oriented.
The problem is they create a floor of two dollars CPM
and a lot of that stuff doesn't work out.
That's why Facebook, pre-Cambridge Analytica
where you could market, and a lot of you who follow me
heard me yell about this every day.
Employees of,
they took that away,
but that product was unbelievable.
You could target people that worked at any company.
You'd know who the fuck they were,
it was unbelievable, you could make the content for them.
- Are you doing this when you
represent when VaynerMedia,
athletes?
- On the VaynerSports side?
- Yeah.
- We haven't yet, because we're doing more organic yet.
- Do you have social media stars?
- We don't, no.
We only - So you are only
pushing yourself?
- Yeah well actually we have a division in VaynerMedia
called VaynerTalent.
Where we do have people, and we are running ads
for their content.
This is something everybody should be doing.
And especially if you're like, young and making money,
pouring it back into yourself is just a good idea.
- [Man] Are you monetizing your Facebook videos?
- We just turned it on,
but it's only 'cause I'm learning it for
everybody else,
we just turned it on.
And the only reason I turned it on is
I just want the data.
You know, I'm not excited about having a mid role
in my content on Facebook, but I need to use myself
right now to get the knowledge for all the other stuff.
We're about to launch a men's media company.
I have PureWow that I bought last year,
so we're about to launch a men's media brand.
And I need the information so that's
the only reason I'm doing it.
I would have waited, I waited on YouTube for years.
- [Man] You don't feel that
will overtake you
- Oh I am a big believer in Facebook.
I think that, I don't it's about overtaking it.
I think it's about both.
For me, the number one rule that everybody here
should think about, whether you're building a
personal brand or a business
is not to create friction for the audience.
So if they wanna watch my vlog on Facebook,
I'm gonna give it to them.
If they wanna watch it on YouTube,
I'm gonna give it to them.
If they wanna listen to it on a podcast,
I'm gonna give it to them.
The biggest mistake people here make
and when I say here I mean, fuckin' everyone,
is they make content for them and their behaviors,
not for everybody else's.
I think for example, a lot of these video stars
better start getting real serious about audio.
Because video's going to be on decline,
because video takes time.
- [Man] That was one of my questions on
B to B side, 'cause a lot of the people,
they just don't have
they have their work, they have kids, what not,
so it's podcasts.
What's your view on podcasts?
(laughs)
- Big.
I think audio is gonna eat up a lot of video.
It's already happening.
- Yeah.
- It's just, right? - Yeah.
- Even think about yourselves,
I mean, think, one of the things
in the limited time that my eyes were open
on the way to the hotel this morning,
people are listening.
If they're listening to music,
sure.
But they're listening so much more to podcasts
than ever before.
We all are.
And,
for me, who's more information based, it works.
When you're doing a highly visual skit,
harder, but I will remind everybody,
technology brings us back to the past.
The world ran on listening to radio.
Our great-great grandparents,
they had bigger imaginations.
They didn't have the video.
They listened to soap operas.
They listened.
And I do think that as crazy as it may sound
to watch their content in audio form,
I don't think it's as far fetched as people think.
And it definitely, if you're informational,
no doubt about it.
- [Man] Have you done any influencer marketing
on podcasts?
- Have I done any
what do you mean by that one?
I want to make sure I understand.
- [Man] Like, dollars
- Yes.
- [Man] With this code you get 10 percent
- Yes.
- [Man] Have you done anything with VaynerMedia
influencers, with your projects?
- So, I want to make sure I understand.
We've done podcasts advertising.
We do influencer advertising.
But when say influencer on podcasts,
are you saying, hire an influencer to do the read as the ad?
Like, how are you actually asking?
- [Man] Reading the ads.
- I think that's, we haven't,
but I think that's a viable option.
If the show's audience matches an influencer
who has a lot of street cred,
it'd be like an athlete reading an ad
during a sports show, right?
But we haven't done that.
- How would you say,
monetization of podcasts?
Like, what is the future?
Now it's like, this
what is the next?
- I don't know.
I mean I think there's a lot of ways.
There's two ways, you either do ads,
or you integrate natively into the show.
Right?
So, two guys talking about E-Sports,
drinking Happy Joe's and that's how it's integrated,
talking about it, once in a while, referencing it.
Making a joke about it, you can integrate it.
Or it's just a live read in the beginning,
in the middle or the end.
So, radio advertising's very black and white.
It's either ads, or it's integrated natively into the show.
- How effective do you see that?
- How what?
- How effective - Effective?
- Marketing - Massively.
I think podcasts are grossly underpriced.
- That's everything.
- Alright, we gotta ride out?
- Thanks guys!
(applauding)
(hip hop beat and piano)