Speaker 1: The thing that has kept me in a very strong position from the earliest wine videos I made to what I'm going to do tomorrow is I have never talked about something I don't know, ever. First of all, it's a real pleasure. You know, I think content creation, and all of you are in it, so a lot of this stuff will make sense, but I think the first thing that I think about always is self-awareness. I think the biggest issue for content creators is them being inspired by someone else and then them subconsciously, not even consciously, subconsciously trying to be like that person, which is an incredibly difficult task because every one of us in this room, me included, have strengths and weaknesses in their ability to create content. So I think there's a couple things to think about. One, your own self-awareness of what you're good at. For example, I'll give you one. I think the concept of writing content is like forgotten in a visual world, yet I can tell you that some of my written content on LinkedIn is dramatically more profound and does well than my clips on TikTok or Instagram. And there may be people in this room whose strongest method of communication is actually in written form, yet the push towards short form video or images make them work on that when they're deviating from a strength. So I think first and foremost, what I think about is a couple things. And they're all in the form of transparency and self-awareness. One, what are you best at communicating? Is it audio, video, written form? Two, the thing that has kept me in a very strong position from the earliest wine videos I made to what I'm gonna do tomorrow is I have never talked about something I don't know, ever. I think when you're a content creator, you feel pressure to output. And when you feel pressure to output, you can get very caught to start talking or creating around something you may not fully understand. A lot of people come and go, and there's some very clear truths to having success. And I think it's one, understanding your format while still trying to challenge yourself. You may be better at writing. It's still good to try to be better at video, but it's not crippling yourself and thinking you can only be successful if you do video. Two, do not deviate from your knowledge. Now, that doesn't mean going, like, look at me. I'm talking about NFTs. I spent 100 hours of research before I made my first video, but putting in the work to be able to talk about something new is very important. The quickest way I've seen people lose is by being too quick to talk about things they don't know. Very important. Number three, a very big thing for everybody to keep in mind here, do not fall in love with the platform that got you there. A very big thing that I've seen consistently in the last 15 years is Twitter was your strong platform, here came Instagram, and you didn't want Instagram to become big because you didn't wanna start over and build up your following count. So many, and this is gonna make sense for all of you, so many leaders on Instagram made a huge mistake by not adopting TikTok, right? They didn't want to, because they had all their followers. Constant mistake. Being too romantic about platform and not adjusting to where the attention is actually going. Those are some themes that I would give a lot of thought to.

Speaker 2: I think one of the things that we focus a lot on is writing as well, so we're trying to teach the team to really script things out, to story tell, before they create content, so I think that goes in line with what we said. Platforms are a little bit more. How do you manage that? I mean, it's a lot of work to be on six platforms.

Speaker 1: You need to be starting out, how do you do this? You know, the way you do it is a couple different ways. One, I think that a lot of people get hurt by the ideology of perfection. So I think one of the reasons, long before I had DRock or a team, I was able to, by myself, while running businesses, be active on every platform, is because I didn't ideologically think about every single piece of content. I think when you're trying to make every piece perfect for yourself, perfection is usually just another word for insecurity. You know, everyone's overthinking it, and so one, it's to feel comfortable with that. Number two is to be okay with not being on six platforms. You know, I think sometimes we feel too much pressure to be everywhere. I talk about it, I'm like, be everywhere, post a lot. A lot of people can't manage that, and that's okay. I believe it has to do with insecurity of success of the piece of content. The biggest reason people didn't go to TikTok when they were winning on Instagram was they didn't have the humility and the self-confidence to not be successful on TikTok immediately. So I think the biggest reason people don't produce is more of a mental game than, it's not hard to produce content for six platforms. It's really not. You can do it. It's that people fear lack of success in numbers from a vanity standpoint, which stop them from actually doing it. So I think humility, humility, is one of the true superpowers of a scaled influencer or content creator. Being okay with starting at zero or being okay if the content's not doing great. I'll give you another, I mean, for example, with me on TikTok, even though I know it's the most important platform, I don't have the time to produce original TikToks, so I know my post-produced content doesn't maximize my ability to win on TikTok, but I'd rather still put out stuff and get what I can than be insecure that I'm only getting 50,000 views on a TikTok when I have 13 million followers. That doesn't register to me as a negative. For too many people, it does register as a negative.

Speaker 3: There's still a lot of people who are here today that are reluctant to move into TikTok. We still have that around here. Is that the case globally?

Speaker 1: It's the case globally. It's a huge mistake. TikTok is eating up the attention of the consumer by the second. To be a content creator, to be in this room and to not be producing content for TikTok is virtually unacceptable. I mean, if you're a content producer, that's just a, especially all the different ways that TikTok now makes it easy to make content, voiceovers, image, you're also making a very important mistake if you're not doing it. TikTok is based on the interest graph, not on the social graph. What I mean by that is, as many of you know, TikTok puts content in front of you based on what you're interested in, not who you follow. This is a very important insight for everybody here. As AI and algorithms continue to increase, that is a much stickier way of doing content than following people. By not making TikToks right now, you're not getting the practice of understanding the interest graph, which would 100% going to be the way the next platform is built. And so you're not getting accustomed to that format, which is almost like not running on a treadmill before you have to run a marathon. So another reason TikTok's incredibly important is it's prepping you for the next iteration. And by not doing it, you're getting even further behind as a content creator. Because your brain starts going into interest graph creation, which is very important. So when TikTok was first popping and I was making content, because I was making content when it was musically, before even the TikTok acquisition, a lot of people are like, what are you doing? This is for 13-year-old girls dancing. And I'm like, it's not. It is now, but Facebook was only for college kids. And Instagram was just for photographers. Platforms evolve. I think that, yes, it's important to be contextual to the platform, but not at the expense of your authenticity. So I'd rather you deliver the way you would deliver on Twitter and LinkedIn on TikTok and let the chips fall where they may than for you to not be who you are. At the same token, there is very much creative ways to deliver serious information on TikTok. And I think there are countless examples of that. And so I think that, yes, I think you should be contextual to a platform, but not at the expense of the content. You don't have to dumb it down. You have to make it contextual to TikTok.

Speaker 2: We talk a lot about diversifying revenue. You know, what kind of advice do you have for the guys

Speaker 3: in terms of diversifying straight out of the gate right now?

Speaker 1: To do it. Diversifying your income streams is always a good strategy. Is always a good strategy, yeah, of course. Now, having the capacity, or back to some of the subjects that you just mentioned, some individuals here, content is more conducive to other revenue streams. If you've got a health and wellness platform, it's easier for you to sell a health and wellness product than, let's say, being a doctor. But subscription products of premium content is always in play for people that I think a lot of people don't think about instantaneously. But yeah, I mean, creating as many revenue streams as possible is always a good idea. The problem is it's back to content and platform. You have to actually be decent at it. Like, if you're gonna sell a product, the product needs to be good, or you're not gonna have repeat business and that's not a viable business. So I think, you know, we started with this and I'll bring it up again with revenue. Self-awareness is very important. You know, if you don't have any passion for creating a product, well, then it's probably a bad idea to create a product. And so, I think, but yes, I mean, I think relying on brand deals is fine because there's so many businesses and there'll potentially always be opportunities, but the more you can control it, the more interesting it is, which is why I think so many creators eventually go to their own product. One of the things as creators we think about is how do we sustain for a long period of time because people may get bored. There's many different ways to talk about this. First of all, I once took a two and a half year gap of producing any content. Two and a half years. So for five years I did wine content from 2006 to 2011 and then in 2014 I started the Ask Gary Vee Show. That's a long gap. So I think a lot of times we beat each other up, you beat yourself up for not producing content. I'm potentially one of the most prolific content creators of the last decade and I once took almost three years where I made almost no content. So I hope that gives everyone a sense of relief that if you have a bad week or even a bad month, it doesn't mean the end of your content career. That's number one. Number two, notice what I came back and did. After five years of doing wine content and not doing content for three years, the content pillar that I decided to do was a Q&A format. Why did I do that? Because I needed the audience to be a contributor to the content creation. I think one of the great mistakes that a lot of people make is they don't incorporate their audience as a potential starter to creative. It is an amazing training wheels setup, chess move, putting you halfway home. Incorporating your audience to being a starting point to more content is something more people need to do. Q&As, answering questions, interactions. And then finally, I'm a very big believer in what I do with DRock. Like filming your day-to-day is an incredible way to scale content. The other thing I did was I did a ton of podcasts and shows that had very small audiences just to be on the receiving end of questions so that I would have content. So literally DMing small podcasts and saying, hey, if you'd like to interview me, and as you're evolving through your careers, that's a good get for a small podcast, so it's good for them, but it's also good for you because you can post-produce the creative. And what's amazing about Q&A is the questions take you to places you won't take yourself. So those are some things to think about. I view that content is the oxygen that creates awareness around what you're doing. So to your point, if you stop creating to do something, you in essence are turning off the oxygen of what you're doing. So the reason I have continuously content created, even though I've gotten remarkably busier in my time, is because I agree with that. I think once you stop creating, you become less vulnerable. Oprah Winfrey's businesses are not as impactful today as they were a decade ago because she doesn't have her show. That's just real life. And so, yeah, I'm a believer that at all costs, as a matter of fact, one of my biggest anxiety points professionally is that because now BeFriends is so successful in taking up my time while I still have to run VaynerX, the thing that, you know, we only have so much time in the day. The biggest casualty to the huge success that I have in NFT land is my content. I am definitely in a different output place. I mean, I went seven, eight years without putting out four pieces of content on my Instagram every day, and now I get two a day. That's like a big day, and that adds up. And so I'm conscious of that. I think about that.