Transcript
Gary Vaynerchuk (0:00)
100 billion people that are pretty and charismatic are about to join social media. Unlike you, they are not real. But like you, they will seem real, 100% real. So what are you doing right now to prepare to compete with 100 billion? There's 8 billion people on Earth. What are you doing right now to prepare for 100 billion influencers joining the ecosystem? This is the GaryVee audio experience. Let me give you an example of things that you could be doing. You could be actually replying to the comments and DMs you get right? It is scary how many people here do not reply to their fans at all. I built my brand by replying to every single tweet I got on Twitter from 2007 to 2011 for four years. All of them. Something that you can build is depth with your community. The other thing you could be doing is you could be not only DMing them or interacting with them, but setting up once a month a virtual Q and A for your fans where you just sit and answer people's question. You could start scaling access, something that will be harder and different for an AI influencer, at least for a little while.
Interviewer 1 (1:14)
So for anyone in the room who may not know, long before agencies or investors, you were filming wine, library TV, daily video episodes, reviewing wine on early YouTube at a time when most people didn't even see the Internet as a serious platform. There is no creator playbook, no monetization roadmap, no influencer economy. So looking back at that moment, what did you understand about attention back then that most people around you did?
Gary Vaynerchuk (1:39)
Not that it's always changing, right? So I started long form YouTube videos 20 years ago, which is insane to say out loud. I mean, fuck, half this room wasn't born.
Interviewer 1 (1:54)
I didn't want to be the one to say that.
Gary Vaynerchuk (1:57)
And what I understood was that the radio used to be the most important platform in the world and that the television was invented and that changed things. But most people are only comfortable with thinking the world is gonna stop while they're alive. And my comfort is that the world will never stop stopping. And for example, I think that AI influencers are about to explode. I also know that when I say that a lot of people here do not want that to happen because that would take money away from you, that would take attention away from you. I have bad news. You have no choice. So you either realize, wait a minute, I'm lucky enough that I have a platform right now and I'm gonna make up an AI boyfriend. I'm. I'm gonna Create an AI dog and I'm gonna monetize that or you're gonna let somebody else do it. Most of you will sit and hope and pray that AI influencer doesn't happen. Most of you will sit around and talk dumb shit like AI influencers are bad cause it's not authentic while you peddle shit that you don't even like. So I think a lot about that. What I understood was in 2006 that that attention was going to move, that this YouTube thing had real legs. It was also Twitter and Facebook happening at the same time. And I had already learned that because I was doing email marketing in the late 90s and early 2000s. Again, this is such a young crowd. People thought email wasn't important and they'd rather do direct mail. So this is just a movie I've seen over and over. And when I sit at a room like this, everything I just said about AI influencers, I. I'm not trying to razz you, I'm trying to inspire you to not lose. And so what I understood in 2006 was the Internet was changing. It was becoming social, it was becoming democratized. Normal people were gonna be able to win, not just Hollywood deciding. And I wanted to take full advantage of it.
