Dos and Don’ts with Gary Vaynerchuk

[00:00 - 00:22] Hello, I'm Maha Abouelenein and welcome to a new episode of Savvy Talk. A few weeks ago, I interviewed the one and only Gary Vee, Gary Vaynerchuk, while in Dubai for Savvy Talk Season 6 Expert Series. We talked about all things culture, content, digital marketing, and you get to hear his 

[00:22 - 00:47] take on the rapid fire do's and don'ts you need to be aware of. We also have a special surprise for you in this episode. I'm giving away one ticket for VeeCon 2023, which is taking place in Indianapolis, May 18th to the 20th. So here's what you need to do. You need to go to my Instagram and tell me your favorite do and don't that Gary shared in the comments from this episode, and then share that post with your friends and tag 

[00:47 - 01:12] me. You'll find more detail on this post. Good luck. I'll announce the winner on April 20th. And now onto the episode. Gary, it's your third trip to Dubai. Why are you here and why do you care about Dubai? I'm here because I want to build businesses and brand in every part of the world. 

[01:12 - 01:33] Obviously some places are closer to Manhattan than others. So it's harder to get to Asia or the Middle East than let's say Europe. I've been in Dubai more than I've been to my own London office in the last several years because I'm incredibly bullish on the UAE. 

[01:33 - 01:59] I'm bullish on the Middle East overall, to be frank. And I anticipate for the next 50 years of my career as I wrap up, that those are all going to be 50 years of a lot of growth in the region. And I think a lot of that growth, when the history books write it, in Saudi, in Egypt, in other parts of the region, a lot of it will link back to the incredible foresight 

[01:59 - 02:20] and aggressive entrepreneurial and cultural energy that Dubai brought to the Middle East. And so this is the epicenter, I think, of what has started this modern Middle East. It's clearly, in a lot of ways, the most viable place for me to set up our office for the 

[02:20 - 02:42] VaynerX, Vayner World. And yeah, I just want to network and create opportunity. So when I met you in 2017, I was like, one of the reasons I wanted to meet you, I'm like, I wanted VaynerMedia to come to the Middle East because I knew what you did back then no one was doing. And now, obviously, marketing, social has evolved so much. 

[02:42 - 03:03] You talk a lot about brand being built in social. What are some things that brands in the Middle East should learn how to do that you believe that they haven't gotten it yet, or even some in the US? Yeah, I mean, I think like to your point about what we've been talking about, what I've been talking about is people have just not made the commitment to realizing brand is actually built in social. 

[03:03 - 03:25] Social by nature allows you to create more creative. When you're able to create more creative, you're able to focus on relevance, not just awareness. I believe every fortune 500 brand does not have an awareness issue. That's why they're a fortune 500 brand. They have a relevance issue. How do you make Nike matter to every single person? 

[03:25 - 03:48] How do you make Apple, BMW, Prada? How do you make it actually matter? The way you make it matter is by storytelling. The way you make it matter is that story has to hit you, me, you, Dustin, Mano. We have different things that are going to make us interesting. Social is conducive to that kind of output. Plus we now live in a world where the algorithms are rewarding content that is interesting 

[03:48 - 04:11] to people. That by nature creates consumer insights. Consumer insights are the starting point to do great work. If you know something about what people are already interested in, you have a better chance of making something that they're interested in, thus rendering them to do the thing you want them to do. In the context of this, it means to buy something. 

[04:11 - 04:33] I think the brands in the Middle East and the world need to make a bigger commitment to output, more volume, more platform strategy, more creative strategy, more cultural strategy. We call it PAC, platforms and culture. I think the faster they do that, the more likely they'll gain market share. I think every brand has to go through that journey. 

[04:33 - 04:56] If it's that easy to do, insights are available on every single platform that gives them data about what's happening. It's free, doesn't cost anything to be on any of these platforms. Why don't people do it? They don't know it's true. Their advisors, aka their agencies, are not pushing it on them. The dirty little secret is agencies make more money selling television and doing programmatic 

[04:56 - 05:18] banner ads than they do doing creative strategically for social. They're not incentivized to. Brands don't know how to keep them accountable. The conversation is not being had at scale. Private equity backed brands, venture capital backed brands, and influencers and creators continue to do this kind of work. They continue to get leverage and market share. 

[05:18 - 05:39] I think at some point it will break. Hulu and Netflix were doing their thing for years, yelling about it, but nobody did anything about it. Then there was a tipping point. I think there'll be a tipping point in advertising and I think we'll be the beneficiary of it. Do you think the influencer game is over? I think the influencer game hasn't started. 

[05:39 - 06:00] Really? I do. I think that influencer marketing works incredibly well when it works and that there's more work to be done. I think it's a game that will forever play out because now humans want to be famous. All of them. Every 13 year old in the world wants to be a YouTuber, wants to be a TikToker. 

[06:00 - 06:21] That means a lot of them will try and many of them will be successful. Not everyone's going to be Logan Paul and Charli D'Amelio. Many of them are going to end up being micro influencers. But if you're a micro influencer and you can make $70,000 a year talking about pancakes or running shoes or skiing or handbags, well, that might be a lot more interesting than 

[06:21 - 06:41] making $70,000 a year being a lawyer or an admin or being a copywriter. So I think you're going to see the rise of that. And then as brands figure that out, spending $50,000 to make a video that nobody watches is a lot less interesting than spending $5,000 to get an influencer to do something that 

[06:41 - 07:02] you guaranteed people are going to watch. So I think we're just in the beginning of influencer marketing. I want to talk about sports. We didn't talk about it all this week in Dubai. Sports, athletes, brands, entrepreneurship. A lot of people in the Middle East now are paying attention to sports. We see F1 in the region, NBA's coming to the region, UFC's in the region, wrestling's in the region. 

[07:02 - 07:26] Why is sports going to be a really good play for some brands for diplomacy and for marketing? And how has that changed in the US? Sports is one of the true religions of our society. There's the religions we all know, and then there's music and sports and fashion. These are religions. These are passion points that are much deeper than other passion points. 

[07:26 - 07:46] It's also real life drama. We love drama. It's why we watch movies. It's why we watch content. Sports is the highest form of drama. It is the ultimate reality TV. It's actually real. You also have the greatest performance. We have the greatest singers in the world. 

[07:46 - 08:08] Chris Rock talked about this, I think, in his stand up, right? Beyonce is not competing with another great singer. Rihanna and Beyonce aren't trying to knock each other off. But in sports, you have the greatest athletes trying to beat the greatest athletes. It's incompelling. And so it will forever be, and has forever been. 

[08:08 - 08:31] The gladiators in the Roman Empire in the middle of the arena are still the same. They're just doing different things. And as far as diplomacy, America, Russia, Nazi Germany, it is one of the great engines 

[08:31 - 08:54] for both diplomacy and propaganda. And it will forever be that way. And I think people will continue to use sports as a catalyst to advance their initiatives at a government level. And then on a human consumer level, we will continue to watch. And it might go from a man fighting a lion to mixed martial arts in a cage, but it will 

[08:54 - 09:21] be always the same. Okay, do's and don'ts. Do's and don'ts in culture. Do's, talk about things that you care about and you're passionate about and you know. Don'ts, try to jump on trends that you don't care about, but you're doing it because it's seemingly as a trend. Do's and don'ts in the workplace. Do, deploy kind candor, but also deploy a system that eliminates cancerous individuals. 

[09:21 - 09:41] Don'ts, don't look the other way when somebody is contributing to your bottom line, but they're destroying your culture. Okay, do's and don'ts when it comes to social media. Do's, really learn it and do it yourself until you really understand it. Don'ts, don't outsource it to your 17 year old niece because she's 17. 

[09:41 - 10:04] Do's and don'ts when it comes to AI, metaverse, NFT, new tech. Do's, stay curious and answer maybe every time you hear something new and crazy. Don'ts, use fear to say no and put your head in the sand like you're an ostrich. Gary Vaynerchuk, thank you so much for being on the show. Thanks, Maha. Appreciate it. And there you have it. 

[10:04 - 10:25] That's all for Gary's do's and don'ts. Hop on over to my Instagram channel @MahaGaber and tell us what your favorite one was for a chance to win a ticket to VeeCon. I'm telling you, VeeCon is going to be out of control. You don't want to miss this opportunity. The only way to get into VeeCon is if you have an NFT ticket. So this is a special treat for my Savvy Talk listeners. 

[10:25 - 10:33] And last year, VeeCon was epic. We'll be back on Monday, continuing our Ramadan series, Inspiring Growth with du Business. See you then.