Why Your Social Media Strategy From The Last Decade Is USELESS | 4Ds Consultation - PART 1

Summary

Podcast Summary: The GaryVee Audio Experience

Episode Title: Why Your Social Media Strategy From The Last Decade Is USELESS | 4Ds Consultation – PART 1
Host: Gary Vaynerchuk
Date: August 25, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode of The GaryVee Audio Experience, Gary Vaynerchuk leads a dynamic “4Ds” consultation where he challenges outdated social media strategies and delivers hands-on advice to entrepreneurs from various industries. The conversation dives deep into how platforms like TikTok, LinkedIn, and Instagram have completely changed the rules of organic reach, why individual pieces of content matter more than ever, how to approach personal versus business branding, and actionable tactics for maximizing growth and building true brand value in today’s environment.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Death of Old Social Media Best Practices

Theme: Platforms have shifted from follower-based distribution to content virality models, making old strategies obsolete.

• TikTok’s Influence:
  • "All those best practices got completely annihilated when TikTok hit the scene and made it about the individual piece of content." (A, 00:41)
  • Every platform now operates on content-by-content merit—one piece can flop, the next can explode, regardless of audience size.
• Platform Parity:
  • Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube Shorts—every major platform is heading towards a TikTok-style discovery algorithm.
• Craft Matters:
  • Gary drills in: “Until you’re great at the craft of the video or the picture or the written words in social, everything will be hard, I promise you.” (A, 01:30)
  • The first three seconds, thumbnails, and overall creativity are more critical than ever.

2. Personal Brand vs. Business Brand

Theme: Stop overthinking “handles and accounts”—the content itself is what finds and builds the audience.

• Audience Perspective:
  • “We out academia ourselves a lot of times… the consumer on the other side doesn’t care about what we’re doing in a boardroom.” (A, 02:30)
• Strategy is Fluid:
  • Even having multiple accounts or ambiguous handle names doesn’t matter: “It’s now the individual piece of content whether you post on your account, your account, or the company's Account, the individual piece… is gonna be the punchline.” (A, 03:35)
• Big Advice:
  • Don’t get paralyzed by over-analysis—be “psychotic about the individual piece of content.” (A, 04:56)

3. Niche Example: Financial Services & Local Events Content

Theme: For industries with “boring” topics or low organic traction, combine community tactics with content creation.

• Practical Playbook:
  • Gary proposes hosting local, in-person dinners for prospects (e.g., “ambitious people in Salt Lake”), promoted through geo-targeted paid ads, and turning those dinners into content (A, 07:05–08:20).
  • Quote: “I believe what you’re doing in that scenario… would explode your local business. I think scaling the unscalable is the move right now in a world of AI.” (A, 08:31)
• Content Engine:
  • Capture real conversations, build community content, blur faces if needed, and repurpose as social posts to drive awareness and credibility (A, 09:45–11:18).

4. Paid vs. Organic: The Exponential Impact of Viral Organic

Theme: Paid ads can kickstart a business, but a single viral organic post can transform scale overnight.

• Stats in Action:
  • “You do know that you could go from 2 to 8 million in sales in a year based on one organic TikTok post.” (A, 00:04)
  • Reiterates: Paid will plateau; organic has the power to shatter ceilings if you hit the creative nerve.
• Organic’s Multiplicative Value:
  • A viral organic video, reused with a conversion CTA, often outperforms even the best AI-optimized paid ads:
    • “When organic thing going viral and I convert it into performance, it outperforms all their best shit.” (A, 21:49)

5. Scaling DTC Brands: Brand > Math

Theme: Explosive growth from paid is possible—but sustaining it requires brand-building, not just sales numbers.

• The Commoditization Warning:
  • “Everything is a commodity besides brand. Everything. So by far, what’s obvious to me is brand, brand, brand.” (A, 18:25)
• Brand Assets:
  • Lean into what’s unique and non-replicable: the founders, their personalities, and original content formats (A, 19:05).
  • Distinctive assets—like creating a memorable jingle or signature format—drive deeper long-term value.
• Reinvestment for Longevity:
  • “I would take some of that money and bring it to zero. I would level out your CAC. I’d pay more. Take 100k… to be awesome at organic, to be awesome at brand building.” (A, 20:24)
• Practical Application:
  • Investing in in-house or external content production teams with the sole focus of maximizing organic reach and brand memorability.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Platform Evolution:
  • “The social media I grew up with, that you all grew up with was as many followers you had was an indicator… All those best practices got completely annihilated when TikTok hit the scene.” (A, 00:23)
• On Content Over Strategy:
  • “Good news, my friend, it doesn’t fucking matter… What you need to do is be fucking psychotic about the individual piece of content.” (A, 03:15 & 04:56)
• On Scaling the Unscalable:
  • “I think scaling the unscalable is the move right now in a world of AI.” (A, 08:31)
• Brand Is All That Matters:
  • “Everything is a commodity besides brand. Everything.” (A, 18:25)
• The Power of Organic Virality:
  • “You do know that you could go from 2 to 8 million in sales in a year based on one organic TikTok post.” (A, 00:04)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00–02:11: Evolution of social platforms & why old best practices are dead.
• 02:11–04:56: Personal branding vs. business branding—stop overthinking, focus on the content.
• 04:57–11:18: Deep-dive: Financial services, local events for content, and blending in-person with digital strategy.
• 11:53–14:33: Case study on DTC/Shopify brand scaling, scaling up through paid ads, and the potential of organic hits.
• 14:33–22:10: Tactical discussion on building brand, organic vs. paid, and investment in brand/creative capability.

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Flow and Tone

Gary’s tone is urgent, pragmatic, and often direct, with frequent use of real-world anecdotes and a relentless focus on action over theory. The session is candid, hands-on, and repeatedly circles back to the mantra that brand (not just sales math) is the only true moat in the modern era.

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Takeaways

• Outdated social media strategies based on follower counts and posting frequency are dead. Every post lives or dies on its own merit.
• Don’t get paralyzed by handle/brand/account overthinking—just make, test, and scale creative ideas.
• Local in-person events can fuel both real-world business and a pipeline of authentic content.
• Paid ads can be a rocket, but only strong organic and clear brand-building sustains success as competition and CAC rise.
• Invest seriously in creative—people, processes, memorable assets—to build a business that can outlast copycats and market shifts.

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For anyone building on social in 2025, this episode is a masterclass in urgency, adaptability, and how to win attention when the old rules no longer apply.

Transcript

[A]

You do know that you could go from 2 to 8 million in sales in a year based on one organic TikTok post. As I scroll to my TikTok, this video right here got 1.9 million views. Here's the most remarkable part, the next post, which crushed for me on Instagram, different content, different platform. Big part of the thesis. 5834 views. So the social media I grew up with, that you all grew up with was as many followers you had was an indicator to the general range every post would get. All those best practices got completely annihilated when TikTok hit the scene and made it about the individual piece of content. And I think it's going to continue to get more extreme because it benefits the platforms. Look, TikTok has the most virality chance. I wasn't kidding what I said, about 8 million for them. It doesn't fit everyone here. Good news, every platform is going through the TikTok thing. LinkedIn, same thing. One video, I have 4,000, next one, 400,000 YouTube shorts, same shit. First video, 1,000, next one, 250,000. So they're all about to go through it because it's the right thing for all of us. It's the right for the platform, it's right for us. This is why I wrote the book. This is why I'm yelling from the loudest way I can that organic social is important, but you have to get good at the craft. Like the first three seconds, the thumbnail, all of it. Until you're great at the craft of the video or the picture or the written words in social, everything will be hard, I promise you. Because everything else is getting more expensive because they're all losing market share to this machine. Newspaper ads are more expensive than they were five years ago. The number one goal you should all care about is views achieved organically. There's people on my team that are fast. There's people on my team that are slower. But if player one got me three videos a day and those three videos got me 100,000 views, but player two was slower, but she fucking made badass shit and only made me one, and that video got 4 million views, which one do I like better? But when people play well, But Gary, my shit's good. I'm like, no, it's not. You took a day and your video got 8,000 views. And over here they got me three videos at 8,000 a piece and that got me 24,000 views. When you make views achieved gross and per post as a North Star, it's going to help you answer a lot of these tough questions.

[B]

The first question I think is how to. How to balance personal branding versus business branding, especially from a social media perspective and then also across multiple brands. If you're trying to do more than one company like you did.

[A]

There's so much to that. First of all, I think that we out academia ourselves a lot of times, so we sit in this room and think about the strategy of personal brand versus the business versus multiple businesses. We when the consumer on the other side doesn't care about what we're doing in a boardroom. That's always been the case. It's now been compounded by how social media now works. Right. The reason I wrote the latest book is social media's really changed in the last two, three years. So best practices on how many handles do you need? What's personal like? All those best practices got completely annihilated when TikTok hit the scene and made it about the individual piece of content. And I think it's going to continue to get more extreme because it benefits the platforms. The more we stay on it, the more money they make. The more you see things you want to see, the more you will stay, the more you see things you don't want to see. A lot of you follow me, but you may not want the wine content or the crying about the jets content. You might want the business content. You might want the silly content. I don't know. But as you all know, I do a lot of different stuff. Compared to most people, I would say good news, my friend, it doesn't fucking matter. That's right. So if you decide to go one platform under your name and do half of the content about the business and half yours at another business, that individual piece of content's gonna find the audience. If you wanna have seven different accounts, I'm like even thinking about new strategies for clients. Like if they're a cereal brand, let's just use Cheerios. They're not a client. If we get Cheerios chef, should I create another account called Morning Breakfast so that I can just post on it with Cheerios content just so they don't have to deal with the like, it's so crazy what happened. And all of you should take advantage of this. You should no longer be paralyzed by any of the ridiculous things we think about for strategy, including even the name of the handle. It's like all out the window. It's now the individual piece of content whether you post on your account, your account, or the company's Account, the individual piece of T porn content is gonna be the punchline. We have this T shirt, T porn. There you go. So that's the answer to that. Christian, I don't think you need to cripple yourselves, the three of you, on this issue. One account, five accounts, one for each of you. What you need to do is be fucking psychotic about the individual piece of content.

[B]

So my question's maybe really specific to financial companies. Is there anything you're seeing, either good, bad or otherwise, that companies like ours who are focused on helping people better their financial lives, is there anything you're seeing out there?

[A]

Yeah, of course. But let's break this down a little bit. So what would you like them to do after they've been affected by your good content to make their financial lives better? Like a non profit would just like it to be good. A profit. Like what? What do you want them to do? What is your business, KPI? What would you like them to buy from you?

[B]

Oh, mostly we sell life insurance. Just like sophisticated life insurance based strategies.

[A]

How much LinkedIn content do you put out a day?

[B]

One post a day?

[A]

What kind of.

[B]

Mostly video.

[A]

Mostly video.

[B]

A clip from the podcast sometimes and other times Originally it's just like a short that I've done. We have had like outside FMOs, third party FMOs doing most of it for the last couple years. And so we've mostly done what they said until more recently where I'm like, I gotta own this more.

[A]

That part's good. How's it been going? Slow.

[B]

Not very well. Not very well, I would say because.

[A]

It'S challenging to get views on it or because you're challenged to come up with ideas to make content for, I.

[B]

Think more challenging to get views. I mean, like, you know, when I put out a short, I get like a, you know, sometimes a short as in like a YouTube short or like, what about LinkedIn? Okay, sorry, back to LinkedIn, please. I would say every once in a while I'll get like a good post that has like, you know, 10,000 views. But for the most part it's, you know, I'm getting like a few hundred impressions on it.

[A]

And that's per day. One a day? Yes. Or you're being kind. Or that's what we're doing. Five a week. Five a week.

[B]

We are dedicated at least to that at this point. Where.

[A]

Understood. Have you thought about where are you based?

[B]

Salt Lake, but we are, but we are totally virtual.

[A]

Understood.

[B]

So we. Yeah.

[A]

And the consumers that you're trying to reach can be National. Yep. Okay.

[B]

That's been a huge advantage for us because we started doing that 10 years ago, I think.

[A]

Couple things. If I was to join the business, the first thing I would do is pitch the idea of hosting a dinner within Salt Lake. Running ads on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn on a 10 to 15 mile radius of our office, where the video was an invitation to fill out a form to join this dinner in a private room in one of Salt Lake's nice restaurants where you would send them to a Google form to fill out who they are. And what you're gonna talk about is overall entrepreneurship in business. A little bit of like Salt Lake local entrepreneur in business and Salt Lake life. Cause that's obviously such a tight knit community. I know it pretty well. And for this lovely dinner we're all gonna have, you're gonna have to bear with us. We have a five minute halftime show commercial for what we do for a living. But the general thing is, I Christian, we would like to be more part of the community and the business community and the growth of the city and the energy of everything that's going on. We have a hockey team now.

[B]

Yep, we do.

[A]

We would like, you know, again, I don't know, like, you know, whether it's steak dinner, whether it's alcohol, no alcohol, whatever the dynamics are, we're gonna do this nice dinner. There's only 12 seats. We're just running this ad within 20 miles. Like you're literally, this is literally the video. We are running this ad for like minded, ambitious people. Footnote, we're also doing this for our social media content. So this dinner is gonna be filmed. You don't need to be in it. It's for my content. So your face can be blurred. It could be back of your head, by the way, you can be in it and can get a nice little plug for your local business. I believe what you're doing in that scenario is a couple things. One, I think it would explode your local business. I think scaling this for everyone. I think scaling the unscalable is the move right now in a world of AI. So like a monthly dinner with 12 to 20 prospects who don't forget, filled out a form that you're going to ask the questions you want to know answers to. Are you happy with your insurance provider? Yes. Okay. You're not invited. You know, like you could, you could do whatever the hell you want in that form, but you will create an engine for your content. My team, as John may know, like the other day, literally as many of you may know if you follow me closely. Yesterday I did Tea with Gary Vee. I brought it back. It was a show I did a lot during COVID I did it for two reasons. One, it's one of my best format shows. Like people like it the most for me. Cause I'm providing real depth. It's what this is at some level. And two, I really believe in social media shopping and I wanted to do it on whatnot to show people that you can do it on these platforms. There's a lot of. I'll definitely get into it with them. But here's the punchline why I'm telling you that story because I put myself in my best position to make good content. We made a piece of content. Like I made a piece of content in reaction to the question. My team clipped it yesterday. We normally go into testing, we test under different accounts how well the content does and then do it on my main channel. I felt so good about it intuitively. We ran it last night. It was the one where I ranted about like, nobody gives a fuck about you. Humility's the key, right? That video, that is the first video that wasn't tested that got over a million views in years. And the reason I think it did that because the other 50 I've done that way I thought were gonna hit. But this morning when I woke up I was like, it's. I put myself in a position to make that video. Right. Like I'm putting myself for an hour in my best spot. I get most excited when I talk to a human and I'm just trying to break through to them and that gets me to a different place. I think you in that setting has the chance to make better content. Yeah. So you're gonna get local and by the way, you're gonna run ads on meta and LinkedIn to the tune about $200 in media spend. Because when you're in a very confined area of a 10 mile radius, you don't need a lot of dollars. Yeah, that's what I would do.

[B]

Very cool. Thank you.

[A]

I think you'll get the right kind of content. And by the way, your production day is gonna be a sales pitch. You see what's happening for the low, low cost of like listen, I don't underestimate covering 12 people's dinner. Like I view that, you know, a couple hundred. Like I think you're gonna win. I think you get. I think it's gonna work. I like this non scalable local physical to film to then scale. Got it. Putting all of you have to put yourself in a position to make the best possible content.

[B]

Good stuff. Thank you.

[A]

You got it.

[C]

Yeah. So I'd say we're here because we are growing really, really fast.

[A]

Awesome.

[C]

We wanna like make sure we have the right plan.

[A]

So is it all direct to consumer? Consumer, yes. And so Shopify?

[C]

Yeah, all Shopify and I'd say like 75% through Shopify, 25% through Instagram and Facebook.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

Direct buying?

[A]

Direct in, within it. Right. Like you're doing it by hand or you got using shop or what? What's happening?

[C]

Yes.

[A]

So is it like dm if you want to buy and you're like kind of handholding it?

[C]

Mostly just through the meta ads we're running. Like meta will give them the option to either buy through our website or buy just in platform.

[A]

Right. So they're buying in platform, it's passing onto your shop.

[C]

Exactly.

[A]

And they're taking a rake. Yep.

[C]

And so we basically just for context, like we did 250,000 in sales last year and I think we're on Track to do 2 million in November.

[A]

Amazing.

[C]

And we're growing 30 to 50% month over month and most of it is on just meta ad spend and increasing that meta ad spend and it's been really profitable too. So that's good.

[A]

That means you have a product that's fit the market against the attention.

[C]

Yes, exactly.

[A]

Who's running those ads? You?

[C]

Yes, all me.

[A]

And how good do you feel about your capability in that? Well like if you had a self guess. Cause you probably don't have a lot of. I have a thousand social media buyers literally in this company, so I can assess like Ronnie versus Sally. I'm aware that you don't have a context point, but what's your gut tell you?

[C]

So I'm 100% self taught, which is good. Yeah, I think Advantage plus ads have made me feel a lot smarter this year than in the past. So like basically all we're doing is we're testing a bunch of creatives but we're like 100% of our ad spend is in advantage plus campaigns which has been working for us.

[A]

How much organic social are you doing?

[C]

Probably two posts a day on Instagram, just Instagram on TikTok. But TikTok is not going very well. But we're still.

[A]

Well, it's not going well because you look at all of this as like conversion funnels, right?

[C]

Yes.

[A]

So you live in CAC and LTV life and that's your rendering back to what I just Showed you. You do know that you could go from 2 to 8 million in sales in a year based on one organic TikTok post. So that's a good thing for everyone to hear. Like you noticed if you followed along of how we were just talking, where they'll eventually go is eventually the math won't work. That's what happens to everybody. That might be 6 million, that might be 11 million. I don't know. Right. I'd have to like look under the hood. But by the way, if they're destined to do 20 million before the math doesn't work out, people gonna watch them and figure it out and do the same thing and then it's gonna slow down. Like the copycat thing will happen very fast.

[C]

And what I was gonna say is that's kind of where we're getting to the point where when I said 2 million in November, I mean the month of November, we think we'll do 2 million. And so we think like next year we could hit 20 million.

[A]

Okay, I see. That's staggering. So you're not going from 250 without 2 million revenue. You think you're going from 250 to 20 million?

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Yeah. So a couple things real quick for the rest of the room. This is what's happening in social media. When you do it right, just like so everybody wraps their head around it. That's that real. But keep going.

[C]

Yeah. So I'm just getting kind of nervous that like, okay, we've been riding this wave all year. I feel like we were pretty early on, like the Advantage plus ads powered by AI, like getting really good targeting. But now I feel like we kind of have experience with a couple other small businesses where we've run them, you know, up to like maybe 5, you know, 3 to 5 million in annual sales. Getting to this point where we're like.

[A]

Did you come from that angle? Were you servicing other businesses and then started your. When you say that, why did that happen?

[C]

So I owned a business with my dad and my brother selling really niche horse related products.

[A]

Awesome.

[C]

And so we've grown that business. It'll probably do about 5 or 6 million this year. But that's kind of like the biggest business we've ever been involved with.

[A]

And this one, just the products hitting and the nature of how social is. Right. The addressable market's bigger. Just given the nature of all women are in play. But then just the way women are shopping, like just the reality of the business. Okay.

[C]

So basically I'm coming to like, okay, we could, we're on track to do 2 million in November. I think it's really realistic. We'll do 20 million.

[A]

So let's go, let's go backwards. What did. Instead of like what you're going to do in November, because I've been through that rodeo, let's talk about what you did do in August.

[C]

So like sales wise, I think we hit close to 600,000.

[A]

And you're anticipating by just putting more dollars into the machine because you're reinvesting what you're making. That's how you see it, right? Yes, because for everybody, like the game, the reason when I said this is how it works, the reason not everyone does it, is if your first 100,000 doesn't work because you weren't good at it, then you're out. If you only had 100,000 or 50,000 or 10, like these are small bit like, right? If you got 10,000 and you go and spend 10,000 on social ads and you don't convert, then the game's over. On the flip side, if it does convert, you see what's happening, right? If your 10,000 makes you 40,000, you take 20,000 and then all of a sudden you just see what he's doing. He's stacking. Got it. But this is why I want to talk about. This is why I wrote the book. This is why I'm yelling from the loudest way I can that organic social is important. When people don't think it's important because they're in one in two places. One, they're advanced and paid. And so like why guess he's just fucking running it, right? You can see, think about being at 600,000 in August and sitting here and having confidence. And I believe him, by the way, that he's gonna do 2 million in November. That's just like, okay, I know what works. But then things change too. And so that's why creative is the whole variable. The targeting's there, the people are on social. Keep going.

[C]

So I guess my question is like going into next year and thinking like, okay, we could take this business to $20 million. It's just so open ended. I feel dumb almost asking it. But like, how would you be thinking about.

[A]

Yeah, I don't think it's dumb. I think first of all you need to reconcile something. You're in the sales business, not in the brand and marketing business. Notice what's happening here. It's all math. So he's selling. So the biggest fear I have, brother Lexi, is are you building a brand? Because if you're not, you're gonna get copied out. Somebody's gonna buy something close enough from China and start pounding against your own. The same audience for. For half the price. We see it happening already. That's right, because people are watching everything. Got it. So my number one recommendation in the way I hear everything is don't worry about 20 or 30 or 18, worry that you're in trouble unless you build a brand. Do you know how many people have social media agencies and want to be Gary Vee? Half the people on social media. But the brand is what allows me. I gotta back it up by being good and like I gotta show up in this room and bring. But it's all brand. Everything is a commodity besides brand. Everything. So by far, what's obvious to me is brand, brand, brand. What does that mean? You know, first off, I think the biggest asset you have is Lexi and her sister. So like, to me that's not replicatable. There's only. What's your sister's name? Takel. Takel and Lexi. Or Takel and Lexi. There could be other sisters doing like. But like they're them, you know. I don't know you like that, Lex. But if you and Takel are willing to go out in front, I think that is a very important part of the next step. You know, joint podcast, original content, showing them in the field. Like you're gonna. What's the name of the brand? Oh, Clem. Oh, Clementine. Oh, Clementine. You've gotta make people give a fuck about that. That like, jingle. Like this is some Mad Men shit. Like, what's the. Like, oh, Clementine. Like there's like a song you should make. I'm being serious. Like, I think you should make a jingle. And that jingle should be an organic post. And maybe the first three seconds of every video or at the end of every video, the jingle should play, you know, 1-877-car for kids. Like if you're from the Jersey, New York area, like PC Richards, the whistle. Like everything is a commodity except brand. So I think the biggest thing that's obvious to me is for you to go all in on organic and all in on ownable shit. But like, I would give up a lot of money if I ran the business. I would give up. Instead of pouring, like what you're just going to do is pouring it back in. Pouring it back in. I would take some of that money and bring it to zero. I would, I would level out your CAC. I'd pay more. I take 100k of it. To be awesome at organic, to be awesome at brand building.

[C]

Mostly investing that in like basically a team to help us.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

Do more.

[A]

That's right. External or internal building at the best cost. Association against the results. To get as many views organically with a complete lens on brand. The other thing you're going to fall in love with and as great as the AI is for meta, it's the same AI that gets an organic post to a lot of views. And then that one, that one on organic will outperform the AI generated testing. So there's double benefit from organic social. The organic ad. The organic post that gets 3 million views when you bring it back and slightly tweak it to make it a conversion ad. So it's just a video of the two gals walking down the street talking about something. It just hit you taking that video back. And at the bottom put, you know, maybe they just tell a story about their pet. I'm literally making shit up right now. Their pet dog, Carol. In the video, it gets 14 million views, 4 million. Now you run it again as an ad, but at the bottom, you take the bottom of the video and you put. Used at checkout, put, you know, code Carol to get free shipping. Because you know it's gonna emotionally hit. It may end up being your best CAC ad. The thing that fucks up all the mathematicians in the game that I play is when organic thing going viral and I convert it into performance, it outperforms all their best shit. And they're like, how the fuck did this happen? Because it's the fucking creative.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay, got it. Totally. Thank you.