For the second year in a row, Animoto livestreamed The Social Video Marketing Summit to thousands of viewers on Facebook. This year, the Summit kicked off with Gary Vaynerchuk presenting a philosophical, yet grounded, keynote regarding the state of social media.
If you missed his talk, here are a few of the biggest takeaways. You can also check out the video of the entire talk at the end of the post.
We’re All Daytrading Attention
For Gary, businesses are like day traders, except the stock they trade is attention. And where does that attention go? He hammered home how mobile devices “are the remote controls of our lives” and that nearly 50% of time spent on them is spent on social media.
For those who are wary of social media or who aren’t sure how important it is for their business, Gary has an interesting rebuttal:
“There's no social media. That's a slang term for what we all have accepted for the current state of the internet.”
If you accept that the internet is important, then you have to accept social media is, too. Knowing how to grab attention on the internet is respecting the market we live in today, and honoring what it wants and doesn’t want. Social media provides that instantaneous feedback loop.
But unlike many speakers, Gary didn’t focus on any one platform. Instead, he hit home again and again that the platform we use to get that attention may change - in fact, it almost certainly will. Businesses have to accept this reality if they’re going to figure out how to stay relevant.
That’s why, as he put it, Gary’s “obsessed with being both the architect and the plumber”, focusing on both the big picture and the background details makes staying relevant possible.
Just Start Executing Already
“I think people are grossly underestimating how much time is spent on Facebook and Instagram - and they overestimate how much time they spend in other places. If you believe that truth, then you have to start becoming a real storyteller, a creator, or executor or whatever word makes you feel comfortable to start executing.”
Gary pushed his audience to start executing - just start creating. He told the Summit audience that too many people focus on labels, worried that they’ll say the wrong thing or give themselves the wrong image. That adds up to too much time spent talking about ideas, and not enough time spent trying to create content that builds an audience.
Gary also advised attendees not to give up on a method of marketing based on a half-hearted effort.
“Maybe you ran a Facebook ad once and make a binary decision that it doesn’t work...”
He himself tests everything himself in an effort to win over the hearts, minds and attention of his audience. He emphasized that success on social media platforms is achievable with sustained effort.
He urged businesses to figure out how to win on social media, and then laid out his definition of what winning looks like.
“What do I mean by winning and losing? Are you emerging in the consciousness of who you’re trying to talk to? Or are you declining?”
Empathy is a Superpower
“Empathy is my superpower. When you have empathy, you actually care more about what the other person is thinking and consuming then the selfish needs you have. It is an incredibly good tactic and strategy if you’re producing content.”
Even though he always appears supremely confident in his many videos, Gary shared he spends most of his time listening. He builds his future content and message around the comments left by his fans, and refuses to market in the feedback-free ways of the past.
Observing, listening and experimenting have been the keys to his success.
“Do you understand the copy needed for a Facebook or Instagram post to make people actually see it? Do you understand the first 3 seconds of a video to make it successful?”
Empathy works like nothing else when you’re trying to connect with your audience. Keeping your audience’s thoughts and feelings at the forefront of your mind when creating content is heavily recommended by Gary.
Testing what works best, listening to the market and making the content not about your needs, but rather your audience's, are manifestations of how empathy works in Gary's favor on social media.