Gary Vaynerchuk’s guide to winning at social media

Photo credit: Gary Vaynerchuk / YouTube

The following is an edited excerpt from #AskGaryVee: One Entrepreneur’s Take on Leadership, Social Media, and Self-Awareness by Gary Vaynerchuk. The excerpt was provided by HarperBusiness Publishing. You can buy a copy here.

Q: What will the next big social network have to do to challenge Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram?

A: There are two keys to the success of a social network.
1. Win over the youth market. The network that makes Snapchat feel like it’s for old people will be the next social superstar.
2. Be extraordinarily useful. Instagram was just a place to post pretty pictures until people realized it actually made them better photographers. The visual intimacy of the pictures made people feel close to other users, and eventually the social network developed to support that closeness.
In sum, if you’re trying to develop the next big platform, create something the youth of the world didn’t know it couldn’t live without.

Q: Which currently popular social media platform will likely be extinct by 2020?

A: The two most vulnerable platforms today are Tumblr and Google+, mostly because big conglomerates own them. For all my concerns about Twitter, I have faith that Jack Dorsey will figure out a way to make it relevant and new-user friendly again. But Tumblr is owned by Yahoo, and despite all those politics of being independent it’s still part of a big holding company. Google has shown a tendency to cut bait if something isn’t working, no matter how much they invested in it, and there’s no doubt that Google+ isn’t working. It’s possible Google will cut Google+, retool it, and reintroduce it one day, but I think it’s a fair bet that Google+ as we know it will not be around in a few years.

Q: Marketing to the next generation through Facebook is on par with putting ads in the Yellow Pages. Facebook is dead. What’s next?

A: Facebook is so not dead. If anything, it’s just starting to grow. I’ve made the mistake of counting out a platform or service prematurely. In 2003, I predicted that SEM and Google AdWords was dead, when in reality it was just starting. I’d say that Google search is destined for Yellow Pages obsolescence. You used to have to go to Google to look up what you wanted. Now it’s all just coming to you, not on the right side of your desktop but in your actual feed. If you know how to target and create content properly, your consumers will have a constant reminder, in the best way, of how relevant your brand is to their lives.

Q: I don’t get it, Facebook. You decide to not show my book page to people. Do you think a lack of success will make me give you more money?

A: I wish people would stop complaining about the cost of doing business on Facebook. It is like any other medium in the world. TV channels aren’t going to run your ads for free. The post office isn’t going to ship out flyers and advance copies of your book for free. This idea that because Facebook started out as a free social network it has to continue giving away organic reach is crazy. It’s one of the most efficient ways to deliver content to people in the world. You don’t think that’s worth a little money? To anyone who feels he or she has a legitimate gripe, by all means use the free alternative to Facebook to alert people to your brand or book or business. That would be email. I’d love to see you get results even close to what you could do with Facebook. You can rant and rail against the cost of Facebook, but in the end you’re just talking to yourself, because Facebook doesn’t care. Nor should it.

Q: Three seconds count as a view for Facebook video – moderately misleading metric, or incredibly bullshit metric?

A: Marketers have got to stop valuing width over depth. Is three seconds of pre-roll view on Facebook more bullcrap than people buying views on YouTube as prerolls? Those on YouTube are actual ads whereas Facebook is putting them in feeds. I don’t care about width metrics. Any brand startup using the number of views it receives to gauge its success doesn’t realize that tech can game that game. I’m looking at the engagements, the comments, the click-throughs to the product. If I am paying attention to something like number of views, I’m taking the width at width value. If I want 800K people to see my face, and they do that, then I consider those three seconds I just got to be worthwhile. It depends what you’re trying to accomplish.

Q: My little sister has Insta and Snapchat but has no interest in Facebook. What do you think the future holds for Facebook?

A: Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is an assassin. There’s a reason he bought Instagram and there’s a reason he tried to buy Snapchat for $3 billion – he wanted the teens. I doubt Facebook is going to get them, though. Instagram is going to become more like Facebook, but if Facebook keeps crushing it, it should be able to hold on to the thirty-five-and-older crowd, which of course is an enormous business. Over time the population will diminish, but I believe Zucks is going to keep going after that youth market. Facebook missed Snapchat, but it bought Oculus, and I’m sure there will be more. Don’t ever count Facebook out. It’s going to be the infrastructure for over-the-top TV, or free Internet, or the best phone we’ve ever seen. Just you wait.