is yelling to go on TikTok to everybody, and most big people didn't do it, because they didn't have the humility to start at zero again. Hey! Those are the guys I'm telling you. Sorry, but you understand, TikTok is crazy.
Everyone here, you already are the kind of human that resonates. So what's crazy about TikTok is, the speed in which you can grow there is much faster than Instagram. No. Much faster.
How do you put the energy in TikTok? What am I doing? You are doing similar-ish stuff, but you've got, it's kind of like, like growing out now, Let's say you three really hit it off tonight. You decided to go to the club.
You're still you, but the room's a little different, and you're gonna be a little different. That's TikTok, got it? Right? You're still you, but you might be a little different because the room's different.
The room's different. The vibes are a little different, but we're still us. Correct. Yes.
I love that. Okay, I'm gonna grow on TikTok. You're gonna be very happy that this night happened. Yes, Gary Vee, I am so happy.
This is the Gary Vee audio experience. Alright everybody, we are going to pick a subject better, and it is free flow. Everybody jump in if you have a question. I would say this.
We're gonna probably talk about a bunch of different things. I highly recommend that you lean into, however, much or little humility you have. This is not, nobody needs the peacock. This is as safe as it gets.
Sammy, you can literally pick anything. You can literally make a statement or pose a question about anything that's happening in culture, anything on your mind, anything you're curious about. Obviously, you know the context of the room, so that should give you some thoughts on it, but like you can go anywhere you want. What do you wanna talk about first?
Okay, so my topic, this is actually something that I'm thinking a lot about as a creator, and so I think probably a lot of you in this room can relate. But as a creator, whatever to the table, my niche is the intersection of business, technical, right? What I struggle with a lot of the time, especially in a world where traditional media is dying, the individual creator has more leverage, more power than ever to be a full media institution, right? What I struggle with as this individual who's being seen by my audience as more of a media outlet than a person, how much do you let yourself work?
Humanness or individuality, especially when you have hot takes and humanness that you wanna bring to the table, while also remembering that people see you as perhaps someone who's informing them and a news outlet. So to summarize, I know that's a lot, really the intersection of creators as media, and how to play with that in the world of, you're also a creator and a human too, and this is a new era that we're in, 25 years ago, this did not exist, the individual creator was not seen as a media platform. So I know that's a little bit niche. Let me broaden it to make it work for everybody.
Yes, and you can go that narrow if you wanna jump in, and by the way, you can talk about yourself as a consumer, as a media outlet, because a lot of you aren't that, and then number two I would pose for anybody wanting to jump in, a build on that that I think touches on it, how much of your actual full real self, are you bringing to the table in what you're putting out, and what has been your journey on that? How do you think about that? How do you put your toe into it? Have you got full throttle?
For example, as the elder states have been here, I've been doing this for a very long time, fair enough respect, but as the elder content creators, like really doing it truly for 20 years, I think one of the things that's funny to me that I always laugh about is, there's not a lot of people have put out as much output as I have over the last 20 years, but literally less than 0.001% of my content has been anything that indicates into my actual real personal life. Like my ex-wife's Google result doesn't even hurt. That's how much I kept my actual life private, even though I was so public. So I think both from a news outlet, consuming people that are giving you the news and what do you want from them and how much?
And then finally, how much are you showing your actual life? Including probably the things that are counter to who you are. For example, when I started making garage sale videos as a highly successful business person, a lot of people struggled with me doing that in my inner circle, because they're making yourself look cheaper, you're like this emerging business icon, you putting out videos on YouTube, you garage selling, you're degrading yourself Gary. I'm like, no, no, I'm showing my cool self.
I'm good with that. So that kind of, I want to build on that. Okay. Please, intro.
So Robert Croak, I'm kind of known three ways as the creator of SoulDance. Kind of a tool product that's going to be well in here. Of course, I have to. It's a rule.
It's a rule. Co-host with Austin Henkwood's here. Rich on his podcast and Rich on his network. And then known through TikTok and Instagram is the walk in front of his guy, because I do a lot of personal finance stuff.
So to answer your question, I think it's a great question, is I believe that if you want to sustain growth and authenticity, sustain growth, sustain growth, and being able to be real to your audience and bring value, you have to maintain authenticity. It doesn't mean you have to lose safety by sharing too much if you have kids and a wife and that stuff. But authenticity to me is important because if we look back two or three years ago, everyone was in a studio. Everyone had all these exact same videos with the exact same books, and it's very similar right now, where there's hundreds of channels saying, if you use this hook, you'll go viral.
And the problem with that, in my opinion, is I'd rather go slow and have the grip on my audience because of my authenticity and helping people for real, rather than going viral more, but having myself all the value behind a paywall. So for me, I think authenticity and staying in your lane is important because we all know and see these people in every category, in every sector, where you can tell they just chat to your team, their script got their script and they're reading it from a script. So I think authenticity is the number one most important thing because people can feel it and sense it. So that's why I always lean on all of my stories of heartache from making tens of millions of dollars and losing millions of dollars over 30 years of my career, is leaning into what I actually know and what I've actually done in the authenticity behind it.
Please. My name is Chuck Shepsy, founder of Creative Economy and YC. We go to the largest event for SEO, if you haven't made it. Large events in the city for creators and marketers, also go founder of a brand called 60, we are a comment section insights platform.
Gary, it's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having us here. At our events, we talk a lot about that like leaning into your uniqueness and that we're in an era where like, it's individuals over institutions. And so I think like really challenging that is important.
I heard someone talk about like, they kind of play a character to an extent when they're filming their content. I'm curious if you feel that way, showing your answer, but before that, I think that when a lot of us are in a more, knowledge-type content to an extent, you do have a duty to ultimately kind of recognize that like, people look at you a certain way, they have to have that sense of credibility. And so it's not to say you don't lean into like your uniqueness and your personal elements that separate you from the other person that's also talking about tech business and culture, because there's many people watching you because it's you. But you do have to kind of like, think before you speak or think before you post something because you kind of have to realize like, oh, but it's just my account.
It's like, yes, but it's also a brand that people are paying attention to. And that's why it's so easy for a personal brand to be tarnished or wrapped in. What's that more about? It takes 30 years to build a brand, two minutes to destroy it.
So I think that's interesting, but I turn it back on. You do feel like you are, in this not saying you're not being you, but you feel like you're playing a character or turning on on video, right, when you're recording. Surprisingly, not at all. I am myself, but I think what I struggle with is the expansion, right?
Oftentimes I think the content that I'm playing out, by one minor is I cover the hottest business lore. It's talking about business, but in an entertainment way. So I'll often think this quality content or the quality of my content could be on the Wall Street Journal, if the Wall Street Journal actually evolved into 2025 and started being on social. And so I will think to myself, is this something that someone who's going through the Wall Street but what I struggle with is, if people come to me as a trusted media source, do they want to see me and my husband?
So one thing, I'm just going to... Yeah, and I would say something for you all. This could actually be a pretty advanced break. This is what's fun to hang with all of you.
I can talk about things that I would say are 301 instead of 101. So one thing I would ask all of you, because I'm feeling there's a lot of versions of this conversation going on for everyone. Hey everybody, I hope you're enjoying the podcast right now. Make sure you follow the podcast.
That's why I'm interrupting. Let's keep going on this show, but follow the podcast. Don't make my mom super happy. There's something that we implemented at VaynerMedia.
So give everybody context. I think a lot of people don't actually realize how many, like what I actually do for a living. I run a 2700 person marketing agency called VaynerMedia that is very global and works with the biggest brands in the world. And we have a lot of corporate challenges that I think match creator challenges.
So we implemented something called PHG internally. So this may resonate with all of you and some of you may laugh about this. So many of our clients treat the Instagram grid. Like every brand thinks they're LVMH.
Like they give me like selling like deodorant. And they're like, we're fucking, we gotta be polished. I'm like, you're not fucking Gucci. You're self fucking, you're relaxed.
You know what I mean? Like it's like that, right? So we have something internally that I think can help a lot of you and it's been a huge breakthrough. We call it PHG platforms, handles.
And then the last one is not for you, it's called Gary. Internally it's, can you get the clients to have more platforms, right? Every client wants to just do Instagram and TikTok. We think there's incredible opportunity.
In fact, this is a good opportunity. I think a lot of you, let me give you a real interesting one that I hope some of you take me up on. If you are not producing content for Snapchat Spotlight, you are missing like a wild opportunity. Like I know a lot of you in here and like knew a lot of you and did a little more even homework because I was want to bring value and clearly some have figured it out.
I could not push some of you harder to get serious about Snapchat Spotlight, Snapchat Spotlight. Snapchat's TikTok, which is a distant third and fourth to Instagram and TikTok. But here's the thing, back to I know why you're feeling so good about it. Social media is just supplying demand.
Everybody's on TikTok and Instagram. There's a lot of demand inside of Snapchat Spotlight. It's just dramatically less than Instagram and TikTok. But it's still good, trillions of hours of 15 to 35 year olds.
A lot of you are doing quite well in those demos, but there's no supply. How many people here post multiple times a day on Snapchat Spotlight? Raise your hand. What's that?
Think about this room, this room. That's the punch line. Anyway, so I think we're always like get clients on more platforms. Another thing.
How many people here are multiple times a day on Google Shorts? Let's start with that. You know I love that. But Google Shorts.
Shorts. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. What? Google Shorts.
YouTube Shorts. YouTube Shorts? Two times a day? Yep.
So YouTube Shorts. Gemini is probably gonna have 30 to 40% of the LML market of the check, AI search. Right now, YouTube and YouTube Shorts are feeding Gemini's LLM to be the results of things. So literally, the Shorts content is a similar to Snapchat Spotlight and you can grow huge audiences there because a lot of other people aren't.
And the reason people aren't doing it is it's not as viral hit oriented as TikTok is, right? Like Shorts stay in the same kind of pocket and a lot of you will get frustrated because you're like, yeah, 7,000, 7,000, 7,000, 7,000. And you don't have that moment where you can get 13 million on TikTok like you can on TikTok. But it is a steady grind, similar to the social media that I grew up with, right?
It's more kind of like slow burn up. However, the secondary value of all of that content being indexed in, to have you all show up in results when people do AEO and GEO, which is the next SEO, which is the results, organic results on chat, GPT and Gemini and all that, is worth it for all of you on that. Right, so platforms, putting your content on more than one or two platforms, putting them on all seven, LinkedIn is my obsession, it's such a big, by the way, FIT, Ulta, the beauty brand, which is our client, CMO last on Wednesday before Thanksgiving asked me if we had one platform to drive our business based on, because we work with them on what you're seeing. I said Facebook blue.
Facebook blue, for a lot of you, will fucking annihilate. So I think if you leave with anything tonight, like getting more cross platform, next, if you don't want to do that, for you, it's handle strategy. A lot of you should have a second handle. So you could have right, STC real life, and start building that up.
Co-collab post with your main account to give it a little boost. And so you're creating a secondary place. I believe that you can do it all within your main feed. A lot of people struggle with that, because they struggle with the negative feedback when they start doing something, again, and someone who knew me back then, when I transitioned from wine only content, wine only everyone, five years, from 2006 to 2011, I only made wine content.
When I started doing business and marketing, literally every comment was, stay in your fucking lane, wine guy, right? So like, I think you can. The algorithms are moving more to allowing all of you to be able to do that. It's scoring on the individual piece of content more and more and more, and I predict I don't get extreme there.
I actually think what you're gonna see from the social platforms is the FYP, and then, how many remember path? Remember path? So there was an app called path. Unfortunately, I invested in that instead of Instagram.
They were battling to be the social network on the phone, because Zucks was slow to mobile. He wasn't big on mobile. Paths big value proposition was you could only follow 300 people, which was epic, because you really got your thing. I actually think path as a feature.
Like if all of us had a secondary toggle on our Instagram feed, that was like our feed, but then a secondary like, no, no, your core, back to, you're all too young for this, a couple of us can talk about this. MySpace had your top eight, maybe when you were six. Remember? When you got kicked out of it?
Yeah. Yeah, if you got bumped out of your buddy's top eight and you were on nine, it was devastating. Anyway, I think, yeah, that's right. I think you'll see the platforms go to like a feed that only has your top hundred followings, and you get every post from them, because I think that's the frustration for some of us.
Nonetheless, I'm talking too much, but I would say another handle and more platforms. You can do your personal stuff potentially on blue. Like, again, a lot of you have very substantial misconceptions and misunderstandings about Facebook blue, Snapchat, Spotlight, YouTube, Shorts. There's a lot of opportunity for a lot of you.
A lot. Hi, I'm Shosh. I'm founder of Social Media. So good.
I love it. I managed to be in a project company. I'm going to start with the whole week, because it's very personal and my story. So I started working with hard companies.
I got into Universal, and then complex, and then I was overseeing partnerships and sketches, and then it will work hard, and I helped them through an acquisition. So I started at the big media, and I went to Social Media, like the talent, the people, they were the right. So at that point, I wanted to help them brand around the people, because on the partnership side, people were like, oh, I'm going to do this campaign, because I have X, Y, and X, Y, and X, Y, and I'm doing so much at this company this day on all the talent. So I really wanted to kind of shift gears there, and go into talent management.
And because I was built at these small companies, I could essentially build brands, right? So I really found my nation, and I knew these really incredible people, like Carson, who kind of expounded on the internet, were like, he should have been here years ago, but he's here when he is, and going back to the brands as themselves, I'm like, would he show what do you keep behind? So I was like, Carson, it was really sort of like, it's okay, I know you blew up, because you do this running thing, but you're also a baker, and you're flying the balance of like, just because all these people are here, turn off the noise, what I see creators sometimes who go up on this one thing, and then they get stuck in this niche, and they don't have an endless amount of content that you do in this category, they kind of work themselves out, and they become less of themselves. And the person who has so many interesting things that you can do, like, let's play on that, let's spend the first few months, like figuring that, listen to your community, or go to the moment you have a long doing to be here on that itself, and then we'll kind of measure how much we left people in, because it's such a great place to do that.
But I think to your point, people are scared to get less views. The amount of people that got there following from being attractive, like, truly, like, literally the amount of conversations through the last 15 years I've had with dudes with six packs, who are like, or girls that are like showing 98% of their body, they have so many other things they want to do, but they don't have the courage to get 10 times less views to go through the process. I lost almost 90% of my audience when I went from wine to business. Like, my numbers literally went from hundreds and hundreds of thousands of views, which were trillions back then, on YouTube videos to like 500.
You know, that's not the world you all live in, like, to your point, whether it's baking or basketball, or wine, drinking, or clothes. Like, a lot of times, the secondary or church-ery thing you start talking about becomes a much bigger thing. Yeah, to build on that, I'm Chloe, I share fashion content and inspire moms all over the world to get dressed up for the day. And I share fashion.
What's that? I share fashion content, and I was just so sick of like fashion influencers being like, and I'm like, that's fucking boring. And so I started dancing, because I'm a dancer, I've been a dancer all my life. And so I started jamming out to these songs and I brought some new to the table.
And people are now like, can you give us dance tutorials? Can you share your makeup routine? And I'm like, I'm scared to share makeup stuff, because I'm not a makeup guru, but like, I can show up sharing what I do. I'm not claiming that I'm a pro at this, right?
And people just like you and like following you. And so I feel like when you share something different, like a different side of you, or like a different journey, or whatever fashion you have, it deepens that relationship with your followers. And you genuinely just want to get to know what you do. But I think on the personal stuff versus baking or dancing, I do think all of you really want to be very thoughtful of the second you start giving the world something, it's theirs.
So the amount of people who like share their relationships and their kids, and they get pissed when the world wants to know about their relationships or their kids, like I friends who literally leverage their children to get more likes. Oh no. And by the way, like all of us know, most people that share their kids are actually doing that. And then they get upset when somebody comes up to them when they're taking their kid to school and wants to say hi.
And I'm like, yo fuck you. I'm like, you did that. So I do, I will say for a lot of you, especially a lot of you are young, like, let it be very clear. You chose to give it to them.
You chose to give it to them. So if you're gonna go there, and it's a lot easier to get likes and awareness for showing your relationship, for showing your kids, for showing your puppy, like you're doing that. So you have to be thoughtful about if you even want to do that. But if you do want to do that, which I don't think is bad, by the way, I don't think that's bad.
I just think you're giving up some of your privacy and control and you've got to decide, some people love that. They're fine with it. Some people don't. But I think you've got to decide if you even want to share those elements.
Personal stuff is very different than other interests and other business opportunities. I want to be very clear, because I think it could be, excuse me. I don't think you shouldn't, I love sharing my dad, because my dad's a narcissist and he loves the attention. And like for him at this point in his life, it's like his favorite thing.
He's literally actually genuinely noble shit. Where's a hat 24-7 that says Gary D's dad? Because he wants, yeah, it's sweet, but my siblings are upset about it. And I'll be honest with you, as the son of it, he does that because he wants to get that.
He wants people to go up to him. And by the way, I'm thrilled to do that. And that's why I'm willing to share him. My mom, for anyone who really follows my content, I know you know it well Austin.
I only talk about my mom. I wish I could share my mom with all of you. Everything I am that has brought up value to anyone at this table is my mom, not me, I'm just a vehicle, but she's not about that life. I've never shared my mom.
I'm dying to have my mom on the podcast, because I think my mom could really help a lot of mothers and humans, but she doesn't want it. And even if she did want it, I'm not sure if it's those things. So I think you have to think about that. Ben's offer.
Probably what I was notably known is what I was going to talk about on Instagram. I really want to work with Gary for a while. But I relate to the fact that you switched from wine content. I exclusively post meetings.
Right. From 2013 to 2018. And then I, my dad owns a catering company. I grew up in kitchens.
And it was a natural hit with people posting videos, you know, about my brain, a comedic spin to the kitchen. And that led into food and beverage. I launched an alcohol company and talked for it society in 2021. When he's in my podcast called Good Guys.
And all of that is to say that it took a very long time to hit it out means I couldn't easily launch the second account. But the people that were there that love me created this core base. My wife was also a meaner. She's grown with her job.
She's the same thing. She's the same thing. And it can be totally hidden for me. I will say this, because I know how well you know social work together a long time and you've found your career for a decade since.
We've worked together. I will say this is a very important nuance. For both of us, it was good to stay in the same account, because we had followers. Even if we lost 90%, we still had a base.
If we were both to do it again today, we may create a new account because your third post may get 4 million views. Like this is a profound shift 36 months ago. Like I would actually argue we are no longer in social media. Now we're in fully in interest media.
Social media was, you will see stuff from people you decide to follow socialize with. Interest media is what you're all living, which is you know if tomorrow you wake up and start getting into the world cup because it's coming and you decided to. And you've liked three or four things and watched three or four things. In a week, your feet is now soccer content.
Your feet can change in two seconds now. Right? Every time like t Crystal Academy Respecting trying to sell it out different. Right?
You try to get booty content. Right? You know what that, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, too much that you want to ask. I get it. In the layup intro? In the eyebrow.
In the eyebrow, in the eyebrow, puppet, Tippie. Yeah, yeah. I was specializing to each other. My name is Jakey, a channel calledaredECHZ, where we highlight a lot of local, mom and population once a throughout New York.
But I can totally relate with this topic a lot because, our personal content started off highlighting recipes that I was doing at home, like I'm not a cook, I'm not a train chef, by any means. So even they did a pivot from highlighting my recipes to highlighting the stories of Freshmore Tools, I've had a lot of pushback. And when I started talking more about my perspectives on politics, the different perspectives that I've acquired from my travels, you know, I basically got the same feedback that you suggested, like, oh, stick the fucking recipes dick. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, basically, like, yo, shut up and dribble. And I think for me, the solution that I found was separating my personal with whatever specific topic that I want to focus on. So my partner Brian over there, Brian. So I think at this point, basically three different channels.
One is JK, my personal. So whatever ideas that I have, my perspectives on Gary Vee, I would probably go on my personal channel. Whereas if I'm highlighting a restaurant, whether that do that on the road, where in New York, that goes on righteous eat. And we have another channel called creators lunch, where we wax poetic about the creator.
It's cool. And to your point as well, it's because of the collab feature. Sometimes we could collab and also figure out ways to boost that content. Handle strategy.
Yeah, so that allows us to have different verticals. And it also, you know, whatever I want to separate myself from the food content, and let's say I just become a full on, you know, a politics pundit, you know, then it could completely separate that. And it's not going to confuse my audience. And also gives me an excuse to defend myself.
It's like, yo, why is right? She's talking about, you know, his perspectives on foreign policy and the trade agreement was like, well, I was on the JK channel. That wasn't right. You see, right?
You see, so that's kind of, you know, categorizing things as well. My name is Michael Snoke. I'm known on social media as higher up wellness. And 99% of my content in the career that I created for myself is built on this topic.
I don't know if anyone here has seen a video that I make, but I'm not a production. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. I think it's clear that we're talking about two separate lanes when she asked the question of authenticity.
We have do I show my life and do I be myself? Those are the two lanes of authenticity that we're covering here. Showing your life is one aspect that I have dealt into deeply and I've seen the fruits up. In January of this year, my father passed away and he was my very best friend in the world.
It's the hardest thing I've ever been through. But it gave me so much to give to other people. You know, there's a piece of scripture James one, two, four, counted all join me face trials and many kinds. Worst thing that ever happened to me is empowered thousands of people.
But my brand is wearing my heart on my sleeve. Now that doesn't mean I talk about my sisters and my mom share their names and show them my content. I don't do that. But I talked about my struggles and I'm very open because I believe you live in a world where we've never been working out of it.
But people have never felt more alone. And the people have called my content and raw or frictionless. I say low production value. Most of it in my car and most of it is shoulders up.
I believe redefining quality super important. There's lighting. There's mics. We were talking about this.
I relied entirely on my ability to communicate efficiently. Jim wrote as this great quote. He says, adequate communication is 20% what we know and 80% how we feel about what we know. And in essence, at purity, we are all communicators.
That's all we are. We're as good as our ability to tell a story and convey a message as are you. And so for me, if I'm going to give people a listen to me instead of one of the other 10,000 fitness mindset personal talent influencers within my media proximity, I have to believe what I'm saying because that energy is perceived through the screen. So I think there's a time to be vulnerable with our authenticity in the form of vulnerability.
Because I think that is a true superpower. And really taking off the mask because I believe people are incredibly attractive to that. That's what everybody wants to be. It's not apologizing themselves.
And if you're even a little bit perceived as that, people are drawn to it, whether they're necessarily in love with what you talk about or not. I think a master class of this is we have a high level authority, top ranking podcast, total goofball on apology himself. You can play in both spectrums. And I think I'll close with this.
The so much of this is giving yourself permission to create what you do inspire to create. And that niche that you talked about the creators get stuck in is so fabricated inside of their own minds. Their followers aren't deeming them saying, you better never create anything different or I'll unfollow you. No, they create this narrative about what they have to do because that's what's always worked.
My most viewed video ever is a video of me drinking the Oreo flavor Coke Zero. Nothing new in my business, nothing in my content, but it shows 40 million people in my face. By the way, I literally literally made all what I've done over 20 years. My most new video is me professing that no one likes blue berries more than that.
It's very real. I think what you're getting at is fear is dramatically driving people's actions. Like fear is such a crippler and it's weaponized. It's incredibly effectively been weaponized by politicians.
It's weaponized by parents. It's weaponized by bosses. Like melting down what you just said is where's everyone sitting here with their relationship with fear? Where's everyone I said earlier?
Humility is this proportionally the weapon of choice for all of you of where you're at right now. The more you lean into your humility, the more it will get good. It can't be fair to enter holds the treasure that you seek. That's it.
And if you're going to continue to tell a story then for me, I'll put this about me and not anybody else. I can only grow my platform to the ability of which I am willing to be authentic. Because if I don't care about nobody's gonna watch, I have to throw my weird authentic edge on the content. I watch his videos because he's walking.
He's like, so I can feel that. People can feel that. That's what's really important to me. It's also hard to remember bullshit.
Yeah. It's really crazy. We're talking about this. This is a really fun thing, especially with live social shopping in the air.
When I started Wine Library TV, that's how I started on February 21st, 2006. I asked all the youngsters here, what were you doing in 2006? In February 21st, 2006, I made a 22-minute YouTube video and within a week had YouTube before they were bought by Google reach out to me and asked me why it was doing well. Because no video over a minute, no video, no video over a minute had done well before.
And my literal answer was I have no idea because it was that early and I had been a wine salesman at that point. I didn't view myself as somebody that people would want to watch. But literally the hour before I started Wine Library TV, my plan was to do QVC. I thought I was going on this video and was gonna make a video and sell these three bottles of wine and post it on YouTube.
And hopefully people would see it. I would give them deeper education that I was able to do in my email and we would sell it. Literally within the first second of being a creator in hindsight, my life changed. The camera goes on just like that.
A little camera, no mic, no lighting. And in one second I was like fuck. If I'm about to tell people what I literally, this is one with my mind. Oh shit.
I, these three wines and the three wines in front of me were very expensive, very good wines. But I remember saying to myself, I can't have this PQVC. I need this to be the wine spectator, meaning I have to tell people what I actually think about these wines. Because in my mind, I literally thought, you know how the brain can think like a ton of shit in like one second.
I was like, if this works, I kind of knew right, like, you know, I'm sure you've had these moments, you're like, I just knew I was like, fuck, I think this might work. I'm like, if this works, and I'm out. And someone's like, Hey, Gary, like, if you were like, Hey, do you like this wine? And I was like, no.
And I was like, I was like, scared about that. So literally, literally, in the first seconds of me ever making content, I was like, fuck, I'm just forever gonna say what I've, like, I just don't want to be in that goshy moment. Like, I don't need date line rolling up on me being like, Oh, you said you like that one and you go like, I was like, fuck it, I'm just gonna go. And and real talk like when I first hit the scene, CA told me I could be a successful public speaker, but I had to stop the curse.
Everybody told me in 2006, 789 that I had to dress up, I was way too casual. Like, all that stuff that is now like mainstream real life, but in 2006, 7, 8, it was like unacceptable. And I think like, if you're authentic, and not just bullshit authentic, like the bad version of using authenticity as a cloak for not being authentic, if you're actually authentic, I've known some of you for 20 years, I am who I am the whole way through. If you're authentic, the world will come to you.
Instead of you trying to be like, I'm telling you if you're authentic, the world will come to you. The first time you alluded to the fact that the real superpower in that is that there's no need to ever wear a mask, there's no need to play the character, so you can't get gosh it. I never have to worry about someone saying, I'm way more direct than I am in my videos. My videos isn't directed, I'm gonna be so like, if I soften up, it's even a benefit.
There's there's no need to put a facade on, because our lives are so intertwined in our careers, unlike most people with other jobs, that that would be exhausting and eventually someone cracks up. I do get a lot of people that do say that I'm like dramatically more attractive in real life than I'm doing. All right, who else got something to answer this? Please.
Hey, what's up? Hey, I'm Carson. Very nice to meet you all, excited to be here tonight. I am new guard.
I feel like a lot of guard talking about being here for a long time, over and over many years. In April, I had 500 followers, and in June, I had 250,000 in a career overnight for me, where you'll find a job, totally, organically, on accident, not something I ever set up to do or intend to do, or ever even thought was possible. The fact that I'm here right now is insanity, wait now, I can't wait to stop. I just started doing funny writing blogs, I was posting for years, I was doing baking stuff, I was just being myself, I had some friends tell me, this whole like blurry pictures of bread was like a blog.
I said, hey, you're funny, you know, you're a personal guy, put yourself in the camera more, be yourself in the side, start setting up, I start eating myself more. I think you can crave. If I went to right now, I can have podcasts that's super over-produced. I think that people try to gather around the production of the thing and speak to Mr.
Howard Wellness, like it's so nice. If you go on Instagram page right now, everything has an intro sequence and a jingle with it and a beautiful nice layout. Like I just started showing my camera, you know, my videos, couldn't see me, more so sweaty for writing. Like it's my authentic self, I was reciting myself in the world and it made this thing occur.
I think people crave and mean, everything is over-produced. If you can just be a friend to somebody, I'm speaking of the vulnerable. I put most of myself online, I show my family, again, I'm making me stop. But I'm figuring out this whole thing.
And I think that people enjoy that. Like people want, when people approach me in the streets, which is insane, it's okay. Like they feel like they're my friend. It's beautiful.
I put out kind of stuff and kind of people come to me. I think that being yourself is such an important weapon that you have to be able to be productive in this new environment. Like there's giant media companies and I'm getting more views of them. Like, what do you mean, Carson's doing better than NBC?
Like, what do we thought? Like if it's preposterous? So I very much am of the school of show yourself, people are vulnerable, be authentic. And I love that nobody could ever close with.
If you're not working for a hundred percent, I show myself and I am a consumer of Carson's content, which I came across to you when you got a 50k. And also, I did see you again. And you also knew like, I have $30,000 and all them came in June. So I'm one of those people where this is power social relationship where I saw you today.
And I'm like, okay, I just saw you. Like I was in a song, I'm just so mad. You were doing a fantastic, good research, great job. I think a lot of what we're talking about is the thing that I hear is basically a personality, which is like, what is it?
Where are you like unique interests? I think they intersect. And I think for you, right? Like, you've got to do running content.
There's so many running content creators. Each of them have been surviving because they all have a unique infusion. And like for you, if you're not just a running content creator, you pay. And like, you have this unique, like, monopoly over being a running baker and doing so much as you know.
You know, the crossroads of running baking. And you do such a great job doing that. And then I think that makes it unique where you're not just running. You start sharing more of this content.
It's great. But you also show this side of like, I mean, in cars and it's so much right tonight. And like, you're really real about that. You also are like, I had three cocktails last night.
You add this, see, I'm going to run the morning, I swear. But I think you have this nice personal monopoly with that. And that makes people follow you know, even if they follow five of their running content. That's a great term.
There's unlimited attention in play. You know, like, I like the term using a personal monopoly. I would argue that even like, I mean, this has been proven, I know you're in this space, you know it. Like, there's 7,600 people that can dominate makeup tutorials.
I think people are so incredibly obsessed with the math that doesn't exist. Like, I'm sure you all know this. It's one through your mind. And it's definitely been things that people brought up to you.
I get a million DMs that are like, Gary, every niche has been taken. Like, I can't find my spot. I'm like, the answer is, it's you. Like, you don't even need to decide to be a Wuzzl, which is a term none of you will understand.
There was a cartoon in 1985 that only ran for one season. That's why I'm dropping it. It was called Wuzzles. I'm fascinated by this cartoon.
It should have been a hit. It was half butterfly, half hippo, half frog, half leg dog. It was this really cool concept. It didn't work, but I always stuck with me.
You don't need to be a Wuzzl and be like the running baker. You can literally just be runner or just baker. That's how much attention is actually at play. So cool.
You want to be the Caesar salad-making rapper who also knows a lot about fucking polo, knock yourself out if you want to fucking take yourself there. And I'm actually a buyer of that. I think the more you show of yourself interests, passions or things you know, I think are incredibly fruitful. Like, I think I'm doing pretty good with the business wine jet-span niche who likes to garage sale.
But I think it really works both ends. You could go four different narrow subject matters that you work with, but you can literally be baker and dominate. That's how much it goes down to the unique connection of humanity and how it all actually works. And just how much sheer attention there actually is in these platforms.
You actually go a little bit deeper into the segmentation of different interests and how, because of algorithmic titles. So yeah, let me let me go right into it. This is how sick this shit's getting. I would argue within 24 months, if anyone here decided to make a video about Charleston Chew, the candy bar, right?
Like literally you're just walking the stream, meaning the Charleston Chew. And like me, you think the Charleston Chew is one of the three best candy bars in the world. That within the when you post it, within the first 150 people that see it are all human beings that actually have interacted or showed up some sort of affinity towards Charleston Chew and how they do with it will start to begin the process of your reach, which will then force everyone to understand the power of niches, because the AI is getting so advanced. Even if Sarah was to make a video right now, even the backdrop of that pattern is going to be understood and ultimately shown to people that have a higher propensity of enjoying that background, my wife would hate that too chaotic, right?
Not shown. And because of sophistication of the AI. Correct. The sophistication of the AI is going to transcribe every word on your like literally that's a growth hacking and stuff that's not authentic and all that stuff.
You will see people in 24 months say things like out of complete context of their video, say things like and Star Wars, like back to like the growth, because what you're going to know is at that point, that video will likely be shown to people that have a high propensity for Star Wars. What those growth hackers won't understand is that none of those Star Wars people are going to like this because you're talking about you know Taco Bell and that's not the point now, they might use you where I'm going, but to go deeper brother, the AI is getting extremely advanced. The platform, so real quick is a step back, just everybody, maybe this will bring value. The reason this is all happening is the platforms make money if they keep you on the platform, right?
Makes sense? So the reason they went to interest media versus social media is you will stay on the platform longer if you're seeing stuff you want. If you're currently into soccer, that's more likely to keep you there than if a photo from someone you followed when you went to high school with them shows a picture of them going to fucking, you know, taking their kid to school. So it will keep going further down that path for quite a while.
And so it's just getting better and better and trained and it's understanding your content more and more and more. And I think that has the potential to be remarkable for a lot of people here because it might give you the courage to widen the things you talked, correct? So basically to your point, if Carson decides to post one video about making today, the second video about running, the third video about his time in finance, fourth video about talking to Gary, that's right, all four videos have the potential in next four months. Yes, I believe that.
But I would argue that what you've done with yourself and broken into three different handles, and that I'm encouraging others, has not necessarily reach of the creative value, but maybe some secondary or tertiary values of brand positioning or what you want to deal with, right? As someone who wants to talk about politics, I'm sure it's not lost anyone, you just may not want to deal with that corroding everything you do, and another handle may help you. Now, real talk, the AI is getting so good that just because you're talking about politics on the different handle, people, the AI is going to know that other people like your food content, they're going to know your image, and they're going to serve it to them at first, so you're not going to be able to keep people away from the politics talks. And these are all things that we're going to be figuring out.
But what I'm starting to, like the one thing I just want to push everyone towards because it's where it's going, and I think it can help all of you, anything that you're deeply knowledgeable about, or anything that you're deeply into, and I always think cool kids get fucked the most because they're stuck in cool thinking, like if you're a cool kid, but you fuck heavy with Legos, like you need to make Lego content. I know they are, but you know what I mean. An older person might think that it's not cool even though it's now, but whatever you deem is not as cool, like if you're passionate about something that you're holding back, I could not push you harder to consider to start flirting with it. So the first one that I think we're all learning on is, I always start to turn into all of our lessons of affairs.
The state competition grew off of this little table. The state competition grew off of this. I think it's the greatest form of that you're just understanding what we're all saying, which is there are a million people that would do business content. There's only one person who is you and has your unique stories and your unique values.
And what the algorithm is doing is just connecting you with a million other people because there are equally people in this world who fuck with you. Here's the story. The second motto I give specifically back to Sammy is, you're in a more professional, great industry. It's a being thought for, I'm portraying the news while also bringing in your person.
There's like two political commentators in the side what you want to do. At the end of the day, the next one of them is like, we are all just using new age media of multiple media. So in the world, I would ask myself, who are the old school anchors? So whether it's K-curick or what have you, did I look up to the most that I didn't be like that?
And I think I'm the most accepted person I ever stacked. I would ask myself how much did they share with their personal lives and that you can use as a model. They don't know. I would ask myself, there's like, how much did they have to pay?
Something you're very good at. What did your gut say, dude? That's just it. What did you just, what did your gut say?
Like you shared your stuff on the honeymoon and Bali and I was like, I just fucked for you. I was like, I fucking love Bali. It's my whole personality. Right, but like, I think you have to be soft.
I just, I'm a whole personality. And the potential of that, like how much do you share? Like, I think Bali's a pretty big, political subject. But you do have to think about that.
The next, there's one thing. Oh, I will give now a personal example from my own content. Mio down there. It's super crap, by the way.
How old are you, Mio? 22. 22. Mio and I were joking about League of Legends, which is a really lame game.
What the fuck are you talking about? What is that? What are you lame? 60,000 people go to fucking stadiums to watch it played.
What do you mean lame? So that's true. So anyways, it's like a very dirty game. The point being, is Mio and I were talking about League, and I was stuck at a certain rate.
And I like spent late nights playing it. I stuck and I was like, fuck it. This 22 year old is roasting me bringing bad this game. So over the next four days, I basically got to the rink and I wanted it.
And on LinkedIn, I was like, I post a lot of things. I was like, actually, I'm going to make fun. I'm really obsessed off of content. And like, you would never expect I didn't post anything about breaking a rink on League of Legends.
And because of that, there's certain ways that you're super thoughtful about what you shared about yourself. I saw the alpha in like, my posters were like school emoji school. It would be like, just broke gold in League of Legends. I posted a video of me like, it's breaking that rink at the moment.
And it was like one of my highest games post in a way that like, I remember seeing AOC back in the day post that she played League of Legends and I was like, holy shit, AOC has an entirely new dimension that I didn't expect. So as you think about the, now I personally believe it's like your gut plus authenticity, plus a little bit of intention around what you shared that has the opportunity and you're talking about that. All the pieces of the last of the model, maybe there is, I really respect Tina Swift as an entrepreneur and a thoughtful artist and a personality. There's a reason why I really respect the term airport, which is like, she's one of a few artists who has maintained their relevance across generations and decades.
And very few of us, insane. But keep in mind, she started saying niche, country stars. And so I think all of us as human beings have the desire to be our full selves online. The reality is, I think society and the market can only set and ingest so much to be at one time.
And it's really cool to see her have eras, she's last that long, where she's been able to inject her personality in different parts of herself through decades. So I just have you think about like, what are the things that I potentially know, right? Did it so well? I don't know who that is too.
Yes, you do. You sure do. One thing is like, how do you intentionally think through? You are this full multi-potentiate person, but what are like the different parts of your personality that you can choose every time?
It's maybe something I would think. So how do you be fully authentic yourself, but also be intentional in your show? I want to click back on that, John. And I think everyone at this table can probably agree with us, and Austin kind of started this conversation earlier.
Because I feel like Gary has laid the groundwork. Because the number one biggest step I have to influence right now, as things get bigger and bigger and there's more competition, is they build their following and then they put up a paywall. And we all need to make money, but they lose the authenticity and stop providing value to their audience to get the paywall up and running and make money. And I think Gary, you know, you've inspired so many of us, because you've never put the paywall up.
And I talked about you, when I first really blew up three, four years ago, I was like, look, I'm going to follow the Gary V model. I'm going to just provide so much value that people can't stop me. And then it will monetize itself through brand deals and rich habits, podcasts and our network and all the things we do at stand. So I think that's the most important part for me, is provide the value and the money that come, rather than build the audience on vanity metrics and then try to model it.
Yeah, I think an understanding as a build that value comes in all shapes and sizes, right? Like, I was, I was, how many people are streaming live at this point? A little bit. That's another subject we should talk about.
Like, the one that I would tell all of you to start with is TikTok Live. Because TikTok, yeah, TikTok Live is the only streaming platform that gives you audience. I literally, back to being the OG and I love the old jokes, I'm about to stab you. I realized it was a funny bit.
Yeah, I was on this morning, 3,000 people watching me, and I just go live, as you all know, it goes into FYP, random people are showing up. And every 10 minutes, I just ask, how many of you in this, and I'm trying to make a point to my audience, it's really meta. I'm doing my thing and I'm trying to teach my audience to do the thing I'm doing. And this crushes them, because a lot of them know who I am, obviously, I've been around for a long time.
But every 10 minutes, I'm saying, hey, how many of you have never seen me? I don't mean, like, you, I fell off with you and you're just recatching up with me. I don't mean, like, you've seen two or three of the videos that I've made or photos, like, you kind of have heard of me. How many of you right here in the room right now have literally never fucking seen me, have no idea who I am, have no clue what the fuck is going on.
Say, never seen. And I do this every, like, 10 minutes. It's like, it's like, and like, the rest of my audience is like, what the fuck? Because, you know, the 20 years, 55 million followers, like, I've been out there, and it reminds people that there's 8.3 billion people on Earth.
And it reminds people, and for all, if I'm at a place where I'm addicted, with everything going on, to be on there as much as possible. Because for me, it is awareness that I can't achieve in any other way. I promise you, all of you should be considering to do it. It's an incredible opportunity.
And I just had a drink, sorry, I'm late. The reason I was running late is I was having drinks with the CEO of Twitch. And obviously, 30 OG, and obviously, everything's so many platforms are moving to live. But I think I have found, and I believe many of you in this table have clearly won on content creation.
I would argue live streaming, right? You guys know it's speed, you know, all that stuff. Aidan, all the kick, all the Twitch stuff. Live streaming, right?
Just live chilling. And then social live shopping, like what's been happening. And those two, I am dying to see, and can't wait to see a lot of you, because we're in phase one of the creator economy, which is just pure content. But we are literally right now in the predawns of super scale, of live streaming, consecration, which is here.
Phase clan, Aidan, all this, and you guys know Marlon, you know it all. And live social shopping, the fact that everybody at this table literally has two new full genres. QVC, or just Truman Show, is a really big deal. And for back to like being relevant over and over, like Taylor, like I think about my career of like, I want on YouTube, then it was Twitter, then I was a Twitter guy, you know, and on and on and on.
A lot of you have the personality, the tenacity, the creativity. I'm sure you see what the guys are doing on Twitter with their show. Like live is very real for a lot of you, and live shopping is very real for a lot of you. And for a lot of you, they will be dramatically more lucrative than what's going on right now.
And all of that attention goes into digital products or other things. And it is a give, give, give, occasionally ask. Like, I've never pay walled, but I ask people to buy wine from my dad's store. I've had sneakers, I've had books, I have deep friends.
Like, I think, I really think the live component. And it's funny, I keep looking at you because like, it's so hard for me to find people that really watch me do it for 20 years. But it's funny, when I blew up, Twitter and YouTube get a lot of credit, but there was a site called Ustream, which before Twitter, for Justin TV, that I really cooked on. And like, it really worked for me.
And, you know, watching this live revolution the last five years, and now we're, like, 2026 will be the year of live streaming and live social shopping. And a lot of you are going to be wildly positively affected, and that makes me happy. Can I ask that? Please.
Don't ask that. In trouble. I just want to say, I am a fashion and marketing coach. I have been doing this full time recently, so I tried the pandemic.
So I got back from my job, and it was either two things, it was either jut to panic, or you couldn't, you know, definitely couldn't. It was a lot of action, and I started working with a lot of brands, and then I scaled that to about six figures, just with brands at home. So I put with all the different brands that you probably know. Like, when these talk about Febreze, all these different brands.
And then also, I wanted to, you know, make my friend a little bit more beautiful. So I just decided to pivot again, and I wanted to just coaching. I just had to get the brand deals and how to actually, you know, just individual policies like that. And the reason why I'm saying that is because I'm impressed with the point of TikTok Live.
So this year, guys, I get a million dollars on TikTok Live alone. Yay! So I got a very big situation because literally, I get on live, I got on live every day since January 1st, and I was just on my TikTok Live every day. I was on live every single day, and I would just have the strategy.
So we went back to value, right? That whole science of just giving people value for 45 minutes, 46 minutes, and then the science of selling on live, and then doing 6k days and 7k days and 8k days and things like that. TikTok Live is literally where it's at. Definitely the same set of figures on live this year.
Do you have previous falling before you... Why do I have to deal with this road by the way of life? Yes, so that's actually a science as well. So I had like 90k off TikTok, but that was from fashion videos.
That was just strictly for fashion videos, and then I got on live, and then I grew 100,000, which I get on TikTok Live alone. So there's just a science of that. So if you're somebody who is just not really a TikTok fan, because I really care to hold on here, the algorithm is still going to be able to see because you have all these new followers now, so the 40-page option sees you. And I'm sorry I really love TikTok Live because people who don't know you are going to see you on that platform.
I could not push all of you more to literally tomorrow. Just go live and just chop it up. You will be flabbergu- As we sit here today, there is no discovery mechanism that is even within a distant mile of going live on TikTok. So how many people here have gone live on Instagram?
Raise your hands, just curious. Have gone live. So the people who have gone live, of course you hate it, because let me explain why. You go live on Instagram, here's what happens.
You go live, it pings your community, shows up. You go live, first couple seconds, it goes to 500, 1000, 4000, I don't know where everyone's at. Everyone's got different numbers. And then as you say on, it declines and declines.
Yes, yes. It's a sad. I get it close. Where are you guys going?
I get it. Now let me tell you about TikTok. When you get good at it, you start small, and then if you're really in the zone and you're not paying attention and you look up in 25 minutes, you're like, there's 2,000 people here? No.
No, it's actually, it's very, very like 30. It still has its personal feel. When you see, like, Brett joined and took one out. You know, Brett TikTok gets a couple of quotes from me.
But I do have a question up here, anyone has a comment. What is it about live? Well, I think it's a blind man element. There's other people that are going live, so it's going to be like.
It's the ultimate form of authenticity. It goes back to what Michael's putting on, which, well, what? Here's why. Yeah, here's why.
You know that subconsciously you know it's harder to hide. No post-production. No, and you'll like this. I'm going to use SNL and general pop acting.
There's a lot of actors that win Academy Awards and we all revere who don't do SNL because they can't do improv. They can't do improv. But I mean, what did you also argue is because it's AI. Like, AI, slot content, and all this thing.