Social strategy podcast episode 42. Welcome to the social strategy podcast where it's all about making the most of your business with smart tips on what's working now in social media, online business and good old fashioned network. And now your host was also known as Ross PR on Twitter, Vernon Ross. Hey guys, this is the social strategy podcast.
Bringing you the best in online business, social media and good old fashioned networking. And we've got a treat for you guys today. Call it with a buddy of mine going through the airport. Gary Vaynerchuk decided to come on the show, give me a few minutes to talk Instagram.
He's been talking a lot if you watch the Axe Gary V show on YouTube about Instagram and his strategy for 2015. It's the network that he's focusing on the most. And when Gary Vaynerchuk decides to focus on a network, I usually pay attention. So we're going to get right into it, but I do want to let you guys know the audio quality is not going to be quite what you're used to because he happened to be on his mobile and it is a phone call and had to record it via my Uber conference line.
So lose a little bit of audio quality, but it won't take away from the content at all. There's some really, really good stuff in here. I'm looking forward to it. Let's go ahead and get into it and I'll see you guys on the back of you.
Hey, you're what's up, man? Hey, brother, how are you? I'm not going to. Really good.
Let me get to a spot where I don't chop off because I'm not the board of planes. And I don't really have limited time. So that's fine. Let me get into a place where you're stable here.
You hear me? Yeah, I hear you're just fine. Great. OK, I'm doing well, man.
And you have to be doing good, man. I'm trying to get stuff done, implement it and take action and do it big in 2015. You know, I go. I sure do, man.
All right. So how much time do I have before? About 10 minutes. They already started going to the plane.
I'm holding them up a little. Yeah, let's just go ahead and go. I want to go ahead and go. My opinion right now is the number one social network and the way I quantify social networks is who's got the biggest audience, but also that audience actually pay attention.
And so in a world where Facebook, not everything gets to the person and in the world where Twitter's got a very noisy screen, where Google plus is not taking off to me, you know, Instagram is really another one social network. So I'm trying to do there is find my cadence on putting out content that's valuable to that audience, whether that's selfie portraits or that's motivational quotes or whether that's wine pictures. How do I connect that living value? How do I make it worthwhile for those people to follow me?
And how do I create an environment where ultimately that leads to awareness around the things that matter today? So I wrote a book called jab, jab, right? Hooked it was about social media content, but how I think about the whole world. How I provide value, provide value, provide value.
And then what that does is it awards me somebody's attention to ask for things that matter to me. Right. Yeah, I think we're all familiar with jab, right? Hooked.
You know, one of the questions I got, I posted a couple of things on Facebook was like, Hey, you know, what would you ask Gary since you have X Gary V, I figured it'd be nice to share this with the audience. Some of the questions that I get are about small business. How do you monetize Instagram for small business? What do I do?
My answer is always become the expert, become the expert at whatever it is that you do. What would you tell a small business? Well, I think not being scared to go in for the ask. So I think your advice is right, because when you're the expert, more people follow you.
But once you have the critical mass, whether that's a hundred followers or thousand followers or million followers, I know it's a lot of small business. Actually, you don't know how to go in for the ask, right? So, you know, it's just literally about posting a picture of a bottle of wine and saying, now on sale for $9.99 and seeing how the 50 quumbles, right? So I think it's important for people to recognize that they can ask for the business.
And I think you've got to find the right way to ask. And so it can't look like a flyer or, you know, it's got to look the part I like to say. So I think that looking the part really matters. And so taking, you know, for example, wine library can put up a bottle shot or like a picture of the product page, or they can take a picture of the wine in the wild, looking like we're at a restaurant.
That's going to work better on Instagram, even though we're asking for that same sale. So I would say the two part answer is ask for the sale to make the content that's asking for the sale contextual to the platform. Nice. Now, are you a fan of going to hashtag crazy at the end of your post?
I'm a fan of two to three, four, five, you know, maybe not more than four, you know, five is my favorite numbers, so they both wrote that in there. But I don't think 20 does the justice you're looking for. You know, I think two, three, four, five is a good place to look at. But I do think they matter.
And I actually think I under hashtag just because I'm so busy and I do it all myself. So they got to be thinking a lot about that. I'm under hashtag. OK, so I got a really good question from a friend of my brandy butler.
She's like, what about scheduling tools? Should you auto post on Instagram and platforms like Instagram or should you do it all yourself? I know you do it all yourself. Yeah, I'm super against the auto posting.
I know that I'm in the minority of this. I just don't think posting something when there's a Boston massacre or shooting in Paris or something else going on. But downside doesn't outweigh the five, 15, 25 minutes a day that you got to put into it. Plus, I always like feeling sharp.
I like being contextual. I value context too much, not to not to allow myself not to schedule, meaning you just have to know the vibe of your audience in the world at that moment. And if you try to schedule, even a day ahead, things could change. And so I'm in the minority.
I want everybody who's listening to know I'm in the minority of this. But I'm a big, big fan of not scheduling it. I just I think that there's more. It's almost like karma.
I think there's more humanity behind the unscheduled post, which then gives it more upside to convert. Yeah. So is that the part of the like the philosophy of the clouds and the dirt that you talked about in that you guys did? You obviously know my spiel.
So that's exactly right. I don't have enough time here to go into it. But the theory is focused on big things, but don't underestimate little things that matter doing my own post and all my own engagement and taking a couple minutes here as I'm running through the airport to be on your show. This is called dirt work, meaning, you know, my PR people are always baffled why I'm willing to do this right now.
But I just passed for example, actually living my life right now 15 minutes ago, the Wall Street Journal just asked me to talk about social perception article. And I'm not doing it because I'm like, I'm sorry, I would I'm on a flight. Every one of my PR people and handlers would say, wait a minute, cancel that podcast you're doing. This is the Wall Street Journal.
A lot more people are going to see it. But for me, I also know that, you know, one, it's my word and I promise you. So that matters to me. But number two, I know there's seven people that are listening to this podcast right now that have never heard of me.
And because we're going deeper than just a quote in the Wall Street Journal article, though, hundreds of thousands of people will see that versus, you know, whatever, you know, listen to this, I feel that I'm going deeper with a lot of people on this call that I can in that quote. Well, that's awesome, Gary. And I appreciate that. And that's what you're talking about, the clouds and the dirt, the stuff that matters at the bottom and the stuff that once you learn it, the craft part of it.
I actually just I think I'm sorry to interrupt, but like I, you know, and I just want everybody to hear this because it matters. Even if nobody was listening to this gets on the Gary V train, I know that, you know, if I canceled and never rescheduled with your push to seven or nine weeks, which is what it would turn into, you know, I would have hurt my relationship with you and even just just me and you matter to me. That's awesome. And I'm not real surprised.
So I know, I know you're busy. I know you're pressed for time. You're in an airport literally running to your flight. I got to ask.
So do you think the Patriots did it? Is this is reminiscent of 2007, man? And I know it was personal in 2007. Oh, are we talking about the inflatable ball?
Yeah. I'm not looking in the world would make me happier if they did do it. You know, obviously I'm a guy, her just fan. I hate the Patriots with all my heart.
I'm like literally like some guys walking by me right now with a number 12 Seahawks jersey and I'm super rooting for him in a couple of weeks. But equally, you might have saw on the ask Gary show. I said four weeks ago that I wanted the Patriots to win the Super Bowl this year because I want to hit rock bottom. Nothing would be better than there'll be another cloud sitting over this team of pushing the envelope of the rules, even if they win.
That, you know, that feels like the most poetic justice. So whatever it is, it is, you know, I can't worry about other teams. I need to worry about my team getting a fact together. That's why I'm hustling so I can eventually buy them and take care of it myself.
That's awesome. So are you, are you involved with that? I know you, with five by five. I'm doing videos there.
No investment or anything like that. I just believe in those guys. I think they're building an interesting platform. So I've been jamming with them.
There's nothing kind of official or any kind of relationship. All right. Cool. One last thing about podcasting.
Are you going to do a separate podcast other than YouTube or what do you think? I don't know. I don't think I have the time right now. Obviously my podcast would do a hell of a lot better.
It was podcast first, not just the audio of the video podcast back to being native for the platform. But right now I have to treat the audio version as, you know, as a transcription. I mean, it's obviously it's doing extremely well. But if I focus on just doing it for audio, you know, I wouldn't be saying watching this or I would be referring to things that you can't see and you're only listening.
So at this point, I don't think I will because I should tell with the background noise, everybody. I'm looking at 24, 7, 365, plus words life and you just can't get to everything. But but I'm glad that it's doing so well. And so many people are listening to my podcast and obviously, you know, tens of thousands of people are watching the show on YouTube, which is great as well.
Awesome. Well, hey, man, it's 10 minutes. I've got to get to a flight. I appreciate you.
You know what? I appreciate you. I do this once in a while. A lot of times people when I tell them 10 minutes, they try to go to 20 or 30.
You were expecting my time and you feeling better about this. So thanks. Big up to everybody in the audience who's listening. Hit me up on Twitter anytime Gary, I love to engage.
I wish all of you well. So you did also in the future. Bye bye. All right, guys, that was an awesome quick interview with Gary Vaynerchuk in an airport.
It was fun. It was fun to do. And you know, you passed up an opportunity to talk to the Wall Street Journal to keep his word and come on the podcast. That is amazing.
That's what leaders do when you talk about giving value, engaging with your audience, him taking the time and keeping his word to me to come on the podcast, even if it was just for a few minutes, what that says is that, Hey, I know you're in my audience. I know you're a fan. I know you also serve people that probably will listen to my show and some that have it. So to go deep in the dirt work, as he was talking about, that's the thing that I'm doing right now by coming on your show.
It was amazing that I really do appreciate Gary taking the time to stop and talk to us about Instagram because what he's doing on Instagram right now is dominating. And if you follow his feed on Instagram, you can find him on Instagram at Gary V E. Like you said, in the in the podcast just now, you'll see what I'm talking about as far as the way that he's going about it. And when you look at it, I'm mimicking some of the stuff I've been seeing him do on his Instagram feed just to see what type of feedback and what type of interaction I get with that type of posting and basically trying to find the cadence on Instagram and see what it is and what delivers the most value to the people that are following you and still at some point delivers you what you're trying to get out of it.
Some amazing takeaways in this in particular, we talked about what small businesses should be doing with Instagram and going for the acts, you have to acts for the sale and there is a way to do it, perfecting your posting strategy and actually doing it yourself instead of scheduling posts. Sorry, but you know, I'm with them on that. I don't like to schedule posts either. Also, we touched on the whole hashtag thing.
I can't stand 20 30 hashtags in a post. And I think it takes away from the post. I've struggled with putting more than five or six in there. I've done it a few times and really have not gotten any real good results from it.
So I don't recommend it. I did hear a really interesting strategy that was not given to us from Gary, but someone that I fought on Instagram, he's talking about actually putting the hashtags in a comment after the post goes up. I'm not sure how effective that is or if people will find the post based on those hashtags, so I'm going to have to test it before I give them a shout out just to make sure that it's actually a legitimate strategy and works. But it is interesting and a good way to look at using Instagram.
Make sure that you guys follow Gary online. Check out the Axe Gary V show. Just go out to YouTube and search for Axe Gary V or go out to GaryVanderchuk.com and you can find links to all of his social networks and everything that he's doing online. Also follow him on Twitter and also follow me on Twitter.
I am at Ross PR and you can also email me, Vernon at Vernon Ross.com. Send me your comments. I love to hear what you guys think. And I want to know what you guys think so far about the show in 2015.
There's a lot of stuff going on right at the beginning of the month hit me kind of hard. So I've only actually gotten one real episode in other than the wrap up episode that I posted at the beginning of the year because I don't like posting those at the end of the year. But that's it. I've missed a couple of shows in January.
It's been just one of those months. So we'll be right back on it in February and put down a show every week. Gonna start back up the motivation mindset Mondays. Have been thinking about breaking that off into a new podcast, but I don't know.
I'm going to continue with it on this podcast because I've gotten a lot of feedback from it and you guys really do enjoy the mindset stuff. Gonna be putting some post out there or maybe posting those to medium. I'm going to start posting on the website medium a lot more than I have been. So definitely I'll put a link not in this post, but in a different one to medium when I start putting that content out there.
So watch my Twitter feed because I'm going to start posting those stories. And that's going to accompany the mindset Monday material. So look for some different stuff that I'm going to be doing as far as content and trying to add a massive amount of value to you guys and what you guys are doing and what you're struggling with and doing. By the way, the mastermind is still open.
It's going to be open until the end of the month. So if you're interested in jumping on the mastermind or jumping in the mastermind group, suit me an email, Vernon at vernanross.com and we can talk about it. I'll send you an application and get you a get your process. If you can qualify for the group, the group may not be right for you, but we are a very focused group of business owners that are trying to do big things online.
And so if you're not a small business owner or you're not looking to jump in online or even offline, because I have an offline business owner in as well, might not be a mastermind for you, but for all of my business folks and people that want to do the next thing in business, go ahead, jump on, send me an email and just put mastermind in the title. And I will definitely get back to you with an application. So if you guys are in St. Louis, come out and check out the social media club of St.
Louis event. It is tomorrow. Check my Twitter feed for all the details. I'll be shooting out some links to that tonight and retweeting some of their stuff.
So check that out as well. All right, guys. I'm going to go and hit it out of here. I've rambled on enough and I will see you in the next episode.