Gary Vaynerchuk: I love Social Media because it sells stuff!

I was an entrepreneur my whole life uh I was a very bad student I couldn't concentrate on things that I didn't think were important and for me I was always very self-aware that I was a good salesman and I loved the action of selling stuff I grew up in my dad's liquor store that he eventually owned in New Jersey and I got involved full-time when I was 22 years old after University and I grew my dad's business from a three to a $60 million business in a 5-year window I want to take a step back I want everybody understand that the skill set that allowed me to build that business from 3 to 60 million in a short period of time the skill set that allowed me to be an early investor in Twitter and Tumblr and Uber and all the things that are going to make me extremely wealthy are interesting to me because when I think of myself as a businessman as a marketer as an individual I think that I stink at most things I really struggle with most things I for the same reason I was a dnf student there's a lot of things I can't do but the one thing I can do and the one thing that I would challenge this room to find out if they have that within themselves or to surround themselves with that kind of individual the one thing I'm great at is I know what you're going to do before it and so my entire career all I've ever spent my time on is where is the Arbitrage where all of you think you should be spending your time and money on telling your story and where's the grass greener because you just haven't figured it out the reason I invested in Twitter in 2007 was because I believe to that be a place where that was happening the real reason I was able to build my wine business in such a quick fashion was because there's something called Google AdWords that came around in 1999 and while all my competitors thought that they had a bu ads in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times I own the word wine on Google for 5 cents for 9 months before anybody bid me up then I did banner retargeting and cookied people when people still thought cookies was something you ate with milk right then my career took a very different turn because four months after YouTube came out I started a wine show on YouTube and I decided to educate the mass about wine not sell them the wine just review the wine and I would even Pan the wines that I was selling because I knew that the age of content was upon us and that I needed to be a Content producer not just a Commerce executor we are living through the single biggest culture shift in attention since the printing press we are living through a Second Industrial Revolution right in front of our eyes right now I mean how many people in this room are lucky enough to have a 12 to 20 yearold in their lives child or grandchild please raise your hands don't get lazy on me thank you so all of you know that individual lives here I mean if you could if they could they would do this and that would it that's just forget robots we're robots I promise you forget buying a robot that serves you Foods we're robots this how many people in this room in every 24-hour window including when you're sleeping are always within Arms Reach of their telephone raise your hand hold on keep that please keep that up I just want people in the front because I don't think you get to see what I'm get to see look around a little bit real quick oh I don't know everybody and just to remind everybody in this crowd as I look around this is not a high school aged crowd so what's happening is we're not understanding we as business people let me remind you I love social media because it's sell stuff I don't think it's cool I don't like technology I want to sell something I'm a businessman I'm only doing this because your attention is there you think as a business person that the behavior is the youth and not your actual customer I know that it's actually you I know that we're living through the youthification of our society that if you think about yourself right now and you think about your parent at your age right now if you're lucky enough to have been around and have a parent that was your age that you are right now when you were a kid and you think about them you're acting much younger than the way they acted at your same age we're living through a massive youthification if you at Instagram how

many people here by show of hands are on Instagram raise your hand solid number very good let's clap it up I'm very happy with that that's for me good job I'm impressed if you look at Instagram how many people here by show hands are familiar with selfies everyone know what a selfie is great the fastest growing demo on selfies on Instagram are 42 to 45y Old females that's right cougar selfie in The Last 5 Years our attention has shifted so much to hear and so much away from everywhere else where they're trying to sell you beer and cars how many people here when you watch television fast forward every single commercial raise your hand everybody everybody yet bill when he's up here the CEO of sap yet Honda yet every brand I work with spends tens of billions of dollars to tell you a story in a place where you will use technology to get away and you will never pay attention and even if they're lucky enough because you dropped your remote control off your bed and you have to see a commercial even if they're lucky the second that commercial comes you're grabbing your phone and you're tweeting checking your email and you're not giving your attention my friends this is with all due respect 99. 9% of the people in this room are trying to sell their stuff in places where they're overpaying on effort and money to get somebody's attention period and that is why all my friends that spend their time doing Snapchat and Instagram and Facebook and there's other things but that's why Uber spends their marketing dollars in those places and they become multi-billion dollar companies and that's why my clients who spend it on print because you're going to go to page 167 in Vogue and be like ooh I want that which is insanity doesn't exist that's why they're like why are we struggling because you're an idiot