Jab, Jab, Jab, right hook: social media heavyweight gary vaynerchuk defines the rules of engagement. (2024)

A SENSE OF URGENCY RIPPLES Gary Vaynerchuk's raspy NewJersey-accented voice. The 38-year-old self-made social media marketeris sitting at an office table, looking intently into a video camera asif you, the viewer, are seated directly across from him. This isimportant, his demeanor signals.

Before we get to what he has to say, know that Vaynerchuk'swisdom commands five figures for speeches and has brought hisVaynerMedia digital consulting agency big clients, including GeneralElectric and PepsiCo.

Vaynerchuk is a social media savant who has loudly extolled itsvirtues for years. Every day, every week, he says, you must engage withyour social media fans through stories that may make them giggle orpossibly educate them about your business (which initially for him wasselling wine). Otherwise, you're being drowned out by the massivevolume of content and ads put out by competitors, media companies andmore.

This particular video rant, as he calls it, is destined for hisYouTube channel and GaryVaynerchuk.com audiences. To be relevant insociety today, you must produce content that engages your fan base, saysthe native of Babruysk, U.S.S.R. (now Belarus), who grew up in Jersey."If you're not putting out stories, you basically don'texist." To emphasize the point, he bangs his fist on the table.Then he pulls off a tennis shoe and bangs it on the table three times("Khrushchev-style, since I'm Russian") to drive homethis point: "Every one of you is a media company."

If you don't understand his message--that giving away wisdom,laughs or other value to fans on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram andelsewhere will pay off later by guilting fans into buying yourstuff--then Vaynerchuk has bad news. His normally fast-paced speechslows: "You ... will ... be ... left ... out ... in ... the ...cold. You will be Blockbuster Video. You will be the person who owned aton of horses before the car..."

Vaynerchuk has a name for his four-step technique--jab, jab, jab,right hook, a boxing reference that is the title of his latestHarperCollins book. It means give, give, give, then ask. Don't makethe mistake of always bragging or trying to sell your stuff on Facebookand Twitter and the like. Think of social media as you would aconversation in a bar or social setting: Aim to entertain or engage.Don't straight out ask for a date or sale. When you jab, the key isto NOT expect something in return.

Vaynerchuk's unrelenting approach has won him steadfast fansamong some of America's biggest corporations. Beth Comstock, GEvice president and chief marketing officer, says Vaynerchuk has an"unrelenting focus on what is going to work." He was"incredibly quick" to see the potential for brands to engagewith customers on Vine, a now year-old mobile app that lets users createand post six-second video clips.

So GE, on his advice, launched its first tiny video the day afterVine debuted. An early GE video that really caught on was a simplescience experiment showing fans what happens when you combine milk, foodcoloring and dish soap--"hardly a costly production," Comstocksays--which has been shared more than 170,000 times."Incredible," she says. "We credit Gary's tremendousfeel for emerging platforms for getting its there."

Vaynerchuk's strategies are just as relevant for entrepreneursand small businesses. In a conversation with SUCCESS while driving fromNew York (he's now a Manhattanite) to a see a client in New Jersey,he says he understands if at first blush you recoil at his jab, jab, jabadvice because you're already spending long hours running yourbusiness.

Yet, until a couple of years ago, he answered every email hereceived that wasn't spam, as well as every message he received viaTwitter. He still answers a substantial number but can't get toevery one: "Eventually the math caught up with me."

Today, he occasionally asks his million followers: "Is thereanything I can do for you?" And when he shares a link to a blogpost he's written, he is known to include a message: "A veryimportant 3 minute read--your thoughts?" People flood him withreplies.

While he recognizes everyone is short on time, Vaynerchuk--whomBloomberg Businessweek considers among the Top 20 people everyentrepreneur should follow on Twitter (along with Virgin conglomeratehead Richard Branson)--thinks it's worth the effort. The ideal isf'or everyone to answer every email and tweet.

"I GET WHY THIS STUFF DOESN'T SOUND ATTRACTIVE,"Vaynerchuk says, suggesting this statement be boldfaced for emphasis."I get why, if you're a small business, that the idea ofspending an hour on Twitter just replying to randomness doesn'tmake sense. I also want everybody who reads this article to know that Iam a businessman and I want to sell first, and that the long-term valueof those customers is incredibly important to one's business."

To him, Yellow Pages ads and TV commercials don't make sense.They're like flushing cash down the toilet. Better to engage withpeople by spending time on free tools: Twitter and Facebook are mustsfor small businesses, he thinks, while B-to-B outfits may benefit fromLinkedIn and the new blogging platform Medium. When you personally replyto someone on Twitter or say thanks for liking your post, you'regiving them effort. "You're creating higher emotion.You're setting yourself up even better for the next sale.

"I'd much rather engage with 13 people and one of themfeel the effort and become a long-term customer than engage with 700people short-term and none of them feel it," Vaynerchuk continues."Scale is attractive, but doesn't necessarily reflect thedepth of the relationship or the business that you're going toget." Too many people "are just doing the yin; you need alittle yang."

If you ignore social media or spend little time with it in 2014, itwill set you up for trouble later as proliferating social mediaplatforms further disrupt the already massively changed advertising andmedia landscape. It's time to learn to engage effectively withcontent tailored specifically to each platform, whether Facebook orPinterest, Tumblr and others. "I'm just worried [that] by notdoing it at all, or very lightweight, what that exposes you to inrelevance in 2016, which comes quick. Got it?" Vaynerchuk says."It's insurance, right? Like, life insurance is actually aboutdeath. But there's actually a pretty good reason to do it."

You can farm out social media to an intern or agency--but thatperson has to be good. "The problem is everybody just assumes thatif you're 22, you can do this, which is ludicrous."

When should you communicate via social media? There is no perfectformula, in Vaynerchuk's view. Maybe you'll find that youshould post to your Facebook fans in early morning before they startwork and again at lunchtime. "A story is at its best when it'snot intrusive, when it brings value to a platform's consumers andwhen it fits in as a natural step along the customer's path tomaking a purchase," he writes in Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How toTell Your Stom in a Noisy Social Warld. Realistically, he tells SUCCESS,time constraints will dictate what you do: "I think it's likeworking out, right? You got to find out what works for you. Some peoplework out in the morning; some people work out at night."

Vaynerchuk does it as opportunities arise, such as "literallyeven walking down the hallway to go to the bathroom. It's scheduledfor every crack within my calendar in an 18-hour day."

First and foremost a businessman, Vaynerchuk wasn't always asocial media darling. His intent has always been about selling. Hesometimes says he got his start in sales by selling lemonade, managingseven lemonade stands across his Edison, N.J., neighborhood as an8-year-old. But it goes back further.

"My first business was really at 41/2. I used to go topeople's yards, rip their flowers out of their yard, ring thedoorbell and sell it back to them," Vaynerchuk says in a speech,eliciting audience laughter ea clip is on YouTube). He sold baseballcards at 12. As a teen, he worked at his dad's liquor store butfbund only wine interesting, so he later started WineLibrary.com,growing the family business through email.

But he didn't start on his path to fame until he took aFlipeam and started Wine Library TV on YouTube in 2006 to share his winewisdom by sampling wines on camera and spitting into a New York Jetsbucket every day for the next 51/2 years. "It wasn't longbefore 100,000 people were watching my videos every day (shout-out to myVayniacs--love you guys)," states GaryVaynerchuk.com. Chalk it upto what New York magazine described as his "unpretentious, gonzoapproach to wine appreciation."

So what if the spare videos "had all the production values ofa hostage video," as The New York Times put it. He got calls toappear on talk shows such as Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and The EllenDeGeneres Show, where he set about to train Ellen's palate byhaving her nibble potato skins and lick a rock before trying a $13 PinotGrigio that he said had subtle flavors of bluestone and saltwater with alittle potato skin action. "I never heard of anyone to describewine with any kind of rock or potato skin," Ellen said, playingalong and soon licking leather and eating cherry juice-soaked cottoncandy before trying other wines. She eventually drew the line.

"Gary is going to make me eat what looks like dirt,"Ellen grimaced as Vaynerchuk put in his mouth a concoction of dirt,cherries and crumpled cigar. "Anything," she quipped, "isgoing to taste good after that." (Her producer did eat it, earningthe show's first Employee of the Month honor.)

Wine has taken a back seat since Vaynerchuk and his brother AJopened VaynerMedia in 2009 to help clients as large as Del Monte buildaudiences on social media. Social media is a marathon in their view, nota sprint.

"I have bad news: Marketing is hard, and it keeps gettingharder," Vaynerchuk writes, noting that days before his bookdeadline, Instagram launched a 15-second video product that competeswith Vine, further changing the landscape. "But there's notime to mourn the past or to feel sorry for ourselves, and there'sno point in self-pity anyway. It is our job as modern-day storytellersto adjust to the realities of the marketplace, because it sure as hellisn't going to slow down for us."

LINKS SUCCESS

Check out odd requests Vaynerchuk receives--and[emailprotected]/Vaynerchuk.

"IF YOU'RE NOT PUTTING OUT STORIES, YOU BASICALLYDON'T EXIST."

Contributing editor Sally Deneen has interviewed innovators,captains of industry and other luminaries, but none has the Twitterfollowing qf Gary Vaynerchuk (1 million-plus).