#AskGaryVee Episode 177: How to Get More Snapchat Followers, Buying Email Lists & the Twitter Exodus

- On this episode, we do it live, kind of, from Wine Library. (upbeat music) ♫ Gary Vee ♫ You ask questions ♫ And I answer them ♫ This is ♫ The #AskGaryVee Show ♫ - Hey everybody, this is Gary Vay-ner-chuk and this is episode 177, of the #AskGaryVee show. We are at Wine Library, which is a lot of fun, you'll be catching some of that on DailyVee, I assume DRock? In the dirty Jers, in Springfield, New Jersey, it's awesome to be here. Brit, it's good to see you. India still snowed in, or? - She's sick, and snowed in probably. - Sick and snowed in, double "S's" for India, for 177. So cool, really sorry I've been traveling a bunch. I know for everybody that's worried or scared, DailyVee is not a replacement for the #AskGaryVee Show, and so I just wanna settle all those debates. And I guess we should get into it. - Cool, first question is from Shai. - Shai.

- Hey Gary, it's midnight here in Israel so I figured I'd use this filter. My question is, how do you grow an audience on Snapchat? Do you have to go Facebook and Twitter to tell followers? - That was basically the question, "how do you grow "an audience on Snapchat? " So Snapchat has no natural in Snapchat app discovery, which is f-ing with a lot of people's heads, because they're like "what the hell, where's the suggested "user list, where can I search, how do I run ads? "I can't grow," of course you can, you grow the old way. Pre-internet apps infrastructure, you use other things to grow your business. I built this business using a newspaper and a radio and other things of that nature, so the answer is absolutely, I think he was going there. I mean, watch my behavior, it's not super complicated. I'm using my Twitter, my email, my Facebook, my Instagram, to drive awareness towards my channel. I'm hitting up, I mean I don't think I remember throwing this many right hooks outside of a book ask, which is weird because I'm doing that right now as well. Dropping March eighth, go get it. I've asked plenty of people and they've sent me emails, like "oh, you've really helped my Snapchat. " These are historically emails that I would reply to and say "thanks, have a great day. " Now I say, "hey in your next story, shout out "my @garyvee handle. " I'm going in for the ask, how about the bottom of your email signature? How about your user name on Instagram, go look at mine. You hack to build awareness for it. You think about billboards and print, where there's no click or permalinks or anything of that nature, no. It's just awareness drives, you didn't have to move, it's got a wide angle, dammit. I was trying to make you move. - [DRock] I know. - I was very impressed with you there DRock. That was a standoff that you won, which pisses me off. Where you drive awareness to your handle, so yes, any means of awareness, I mean soon I'm gonna put a sign in here that says "follow Gary on Snapchat. " So yes, that's the answer, using other platforms to drive awareness to get followers from that platform. But scalable ones, email signatures, your Linkedin account, look at my Instagram profile, things like that.

- [Voiceover] Kyle asks, "When you are hustling, "how do you spot the difference between 'busy work' "and 'valuable work? '" - You know Kyle, that's a great question, and honestly that's a work in progress always to me. Sam, real quick. This is gonna be a real live lesson in retail. - [Sam] What's up? - Please always make sure you ask a customer if they need any help. - Oh I gotcha. Yup. - Okay cool, awesome, thank you. Get out of here, get his handle. So I think the, gotta shift the brain from retail. This is something I've dealt with my whole life. Like I don't think I've mastered it, I mean I'm doing busy work even now at the level that I'm at. I'm still doing busy work that I think is in hindsight not as good, I think experience helps you. I think over time I've learned through, "oh crap, "I remember when I did that back in the day, "don't do that again. " You start understanding, but I think one of the biggest that entrepreneurs make, especially as they grow their business, or in the beginning when they're crippled by this thought of quality work versus just doing it, like smart work versus just work, is when you start judging it too much, you start leaving yourself out of opportunity for serendipity, and upside that you can't see. There's been a lot of things on paper that might look like busy work, just kissing babies and shaking hands, or just replying to everybody on Twitter. Things that not everybody think is the best scalable use of my time that has lead to enormous upside because it wasn't obvious when you first did it. Including the video show, including 10 years ago in a month, sitting upstairs doing a video show where everybody's like "we needed you that hour "to sell wine, or to reorganize our operations, "why are you putting a video on YouTube, "what is YouTube? " Like, got it, it ended up being the single biggest decision of my career up to this point, transitioning myself into a media property and a brand from just being an operator on this floor. Wasn't obvious, felt like it could have been busy work, and there's been other things that I've done like that have been busy work, trying to think of a good example. But like a million things that we've stopped and started that didn't become real, it happens with us every day and our team. So I think that you don't always know, I think you find out after the fact, and I think to have a long 40 to 60 year old professional career that's successful, as long as you're learning in year one, three, seven, nine, 12, patterns start becoming more self aware about yourself, understanding your strengths and weaknesses, you start having less just busy work, and more high impact work, and that's what's happened in my career. - Next question is a Snapchat video.

- Gary Vee, my question is, if we wanted to start a subscription box service, should we buy an email list? Thanks Gary Vee. - It's a great question, I mean look, any time you start any business an email list, email is one of the great ways to convert them. The answer is yes and no. Yes if it's a quality list that has open rates and click throughs, and people that are interested in your cookies of the month club because it was an email from cookie lovers. But if you buy a list that has a million people on it, and it was part of a photography list somewhat, or just random emails that they found around the internet, and nobody opens it, and they are into photography, and you're trying to sell them a cookie subscription thing, the answer is no, that's a very easy play. If you wanna buy a list from somebody, force them to do a test for interest around what you do. Force them, "I will not buy your list unless you do this. " And it's a presell to be on the invite list for your up and coming business, and if you see a bunch of people sign up for it, well now you buy. Now they may say, that's like selling the milk without the cow, that whole thing. You know, girl (mumbles). Like I get that, but just say no, there's a million lists out there, you got the leverage. They want your money, don't forget that. - Good answer. - That was good, right? - It was good. - There's some quality content here, Brit. - There is. - You mean like you were impressed that answer produced that kind of quality, that question produced the quality answer that was all encompassing for business? - Yeah, I felt like I learned something. - That's why the show exists. - That's why I work for you. - Thank you, go ahead. - Next. - By the way, love these snapchats. - [Voiceover] Emojis and URLS, and if you could have an emoji what would it be? - One more time, because I was talking about how much, thank you for everybody sending Snapchat videos, keep them coming. And use Twitter to hit up India, that was smart.

- Hi Gary, I wanna know your opinion on the new domain extensions emojis and URLs, and if you could have an emoji, what would it be? - The new domain extensions, what do you think-- - And emojis in URLs, is that possible? Can you put emojis in URLs? - We were Googling it right before. - No, not yet right? I think it's brilliant, I'd be so into it, so into it. My emoji would be the cash with wings, because you know, I'm always growing moneys. - How to get your emoji URL. - Is that real? (mumbling) So one, this is always fun for me when I don't fully know, is it available, like put that in. - The product registered the first corporate emoji domain back in 2011, when it bought-- - Poop. la, right? - Yeah, and it didn't do anything with it. Simple, they can't. All the big top domains only allow normal characters in their domain name. - Got it, so look, let's just assume that it's allowed slash it's gonna be allowed, I think it's gonna be huge. Emoji is a language now, period, end of story. If you don't understand that, you don't understand the world. Like we used to draw, just because letters were introduced doesn't mean we can't use things now, it's just communication, don't get romantic about how you communicate, worry about actually communicating in the year you live in. There's not a single 50 year old in America now who hasn't sent an emoji. There are 62 year old dudes that are bald as shit and don't know anything about technology and can't even open an attachment, that have sent a poop emoji to their grandchild, right? Like, let's talk about your dad for a minute, not technically unbelievable. Has sent emojis? - Yes - Correct, because that's what's happening. It's crossed over, it's mainstream, it's accepted, it's understood, it's pictures, it's (censored) basic baby. And so I think it's huge, mine would be the dollars with wings. I'm not very hot on domain names, I think domain names are what you make them. I have friends that are obsessed with names, I've talked about this. Like what is does Google or Facebook or Snapchat mean? It means what you made it. Like Vaynerchuk, people are like, "you're so lucky" I'm like, "let's relax. " Like I made that name mean something, Vaynerchuk, like it's about what you do with it, and so I haven't really paid a lot of attention to what's going on in that world, which is why I didn't even know if you could own an emoji dot com, or what have you, it doesn't look like dot coms work yet. But I'm super into it, I'm all about emojis, I even dropped the "e" there, to like, you know like, me emoji.

- [Voiceover] Rochelle asks, "What are your thoughts "on today's Tiwtter executive 'exodus' news? " - Rochell, I think there's, I think that... So I asked for this question to be on the show because I wanna teach everything about optics. Meaning, when a new CEO comes in and then there's this "huge exodus," a lot of times it means the new CEO has brought in the people that they want. And they're respecting people and letting them leave on their terms. I don't see, or these people actually don't believe in Jack's vision. My intutition is, based on Twitter's track record over the last three to four years, and I love Dick Cusam, one of my best buds in business and I saw him recently, but results are results, meaning it didn't go good enough for him not to be excited about the guy who invented it to be back in place, though you might not like his personality, things of that nature, but I hate when the media's like, everything is so negative. Like when I buy a company, and become a CEO of it, because that will happen in my career, and there's an exodus, becaue big shot Gary is coming, let me promise you, anybody that I wanted to keep would have stayed, because I would convince them that I'm coming to do nothing but good. And maybe three or four just wouldn't see it, or they were best buds with the former CEO, or they're just tired. But please don't get caught up in the hyperbole of there's a new CEO, we're still witihin the year of that new CEO, this is common business stuff, period. Like, this is what always happens, so you don't know if they were forced out or they were left on their own, I don't know, even though I'm close to a lot of the people involved. Because when I read those headlines, I poo them because I am an actual operator. I'm not confused by them, I know what real business is. Jack's come in, he's got a different plan, some pieces fit for that, some don't, some people he might have wanted to fit for that, decided they don't fit for that, it's just real life, it's not some huge conspiracy. I think that's what I think. Like that's what it is, I just wanted to answer this question because I'm stunned by how many people just accept very basic narratives, when if you live it you know the real details underneath, just like you know anything that's in your world. My world is business, you know the real, I read headlines, I'm like "oh," you're like "no, that's what really happened. " Just like we've gotten cynical to "leave of absence. " Did you see "Spotlight? " - No. - Okay, it was about the priest that did sexual harassment. - Oh yeah, I heard about it. - Their official, when they were doing bad things was they got relocated on assignment, or "sick leave. " So this "exodus" may be on strategy, get it? Question of the day, actually educate me. Tell me something that happened in your world and how it's explained, but what's really going on. Could be some fun late night reading. - I'll be reading it. - Yeah, I'm going to Phoenix tonight so hopefully, oh actually this is airing tomorrow. We're doing a little bit of smarter cadence on the shows, it doesn't have to go out immediately. You keep asking questions, I'll keep answering them. (upbeat music)