Gary Vaynerchuk is a New York Times bestselling author and has blossomed into a social media superstar over the last few years. He is one of the foremost experts in the digital space as the Founder of VaynerMedia and also took a recent dive directly into the sports industry with the start of VaynerSports. If you haven’t seen them already, The #AskGaryVee Show and DailyVee are must-watches.
A few years back I sat down with Gary to discuss, among other things, what was then his new book, “Jab, Jab, Right Hook,” which you can pick up on Amazon. Take a quick two minutes to read his thoughts:
Brandon Steiner: We hear that social media is good for a company's "customer engagement", customer service and sales. How do you measure how well you're doing with engagement?
Gary Vaynerchuk: You look at the standard engagement numbers in the marketplace. Basically, you take a look at your historical engagement data through Facebook Insights, and then you look at the other brands within your sector and see how they're doing publicly. So you look at their number of fans and the amount of engagement they're getting on each post in order to set some kind of benchmark.
BS: You've said Snapchat and Instagram are among the new ways to reach teens; they're not on Facebook anymore. So what demographics is Facebook good for? Twitter? Pinterest?
GV: So I don't think my statement was so definitive but teens' presence is definitely decreasing as their attention turns to Vine/Snapchat. Facebook is dominant in the 25-100 age range. Facebook is dominant in the 25-100 age range. Twitter has a teen problem. It does better when people get out of college. Call it 22-45 age range. Pinterest is overwhelmingly female and for me (anecdotally) it's like 22-60 age range.
BS: What’s the best way to reach you?
GV: Twitter is probably the only way to really, really get to me. Eventually I'm going to see it and engage. With over 100k tweets and 90% of them being @replies, it's just a math game.
BS: What are the biggest mistakes companies make on social media?
GV: They throw too many right hooks. What I mean is that they're posting too many things that are just driving sales and good for them instead of their audience.
BS: Bills or Jets - who brings home a Lombardi Trophy first?
GV: Jets. Because I'll buy them in the next 35-40 years and I don't see the Bills winning it anytime between now and then.
BS: Anything in particular that first sparked your “social” interest?
Making money.
BS: Do you still have your baseball cards?
GV: Not really. I have a bunch of commons running around, and some good cards here and there, but I sold the vast majority of them during my career.
BS: I’ve heard a Steiner Collectible or two may be in your collection, is that true? Also, what’s your favorite sport collectible?
GV: There are some! And on a side note, it may sound cheesy, but I've been very impressed by how this business has been built as I've watched from afar since it was my first love as a business.
My favorite sports memorabilia piece is my Super Bowl helmet signed by the entire 1969 Super Bowl Jets.
