Gary Vaynerchuk’s story started as the co-owner of a wine store in New Jersey. He gained fame as the host of Wine Library TV, a video blog on the subject of wine, built his wine store into a multi-million dollar business and established his personal brand with TV appearances and speaking engagements around the world.
Just last week he signed a seven-figure book deal and I wanted to use this blog post to look at things that made him as successful as he is in creating opportunities for himself via his video blog.
- Blogging about your passion
Focus on what you love to do. Find your passion and start blogging about it. By doing what you love, you will be more dedicated, more genuine and you will have more enthusiasm. Your readers, your viewers will notice this.
Publishing great content will be easier. Sharing your knowledge and experience will be easier. Making the content unique, interesting and useful to your target group will be easier, as long as you do what you love.
- Putting your face in front of people
“Answer every single email and every single comment on your blog for the rest of your freaking life”
Don’t be a faceless corporation. Show your face, show your personality. Make it easy for your audience to reach you. Have a Twitter account. Listen to what your readers say. Interact with your audience. Show your appreciation by answering comments / e-mails / tweets you get.
- Spreading the word
“Content is king but marketing is queen and the queen runs the household”
Many bloggers just publish a post and wait for visitors and subscribers to be handed to them on a silver platter. That is too passive. You can’t sit around waiting for people to find your blog, you need to find them, help them out, show them the value you create and win them one by one.
- Being different and eccentric
Do not be afraid to be seen as different, or even eccentric. Being different or eccentric in the crowded world of blogs is the strength. Gary Vaynerchuk is very hyperactive and has a very high energy level in his video blogs. He is very direct and doesn’t censor himself, which makes him very authentic and inspirational to follow.
- Creating a dedicated tribe following
“With you and a little bit of me, we’re changing the wine world, whether they like it or not”
By being a part of the conversation and by connecting and listening to your audience, you are a part of the dialog and you are making your customers part of a greater community. You build fans one by one. You show that you care, you give your customers someone they can trust and you lead your tribe towards a better place.
- Going where competitors don’t go
Vaynerchuk leveraged modern technology to reach young wine audience. His video blog caught the attention of a demographic new to wine, at the time when none of competitors cared about Internet, video blogging or social media.
To stand out and to differentiate yourself in a blogging world that is saturated with text, you can expand by using video and audio for content and message delivery.
- Pumping out content consistently
“Pump out content – if you don’t produce something every day you’ll be out hustled”
Gary Vaynerchuk started his video blog and has remained dedicated and very consistent in producing content and recording multiple video blogs every week for several years now. Creating content regularly builds trust and dependability and gives readers a reason to subscribe and check back often.
Gary Vaynerchuk’s talk at SXSW
If you want more Gary Vaynerchuk watch his SXSW keynote below. It shows his passion, his dedication to what he is doing, and he explains, in more details, some of the points above.
Building your own empire
I hope these points can be inspirational and motivational, help you come closer to reaching your goals, increasing blog traffic and building your own empire from your blog.
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Handling rejection helps too! Some people quit because they were embarrassed when someone proved them wrong. I make a lot of mistakes and I handle rejection pretty well.
I liked the analogy of king and queen. Undoubtedly, the marketing part cannot be undermined in growing any business. In fact, nowadays in fiercely competitive world, it’s the prime strategy to survive and grow.
Thanks for sharing.
Dugg. Gary V’s hustle can’t be questioned.
He makes me want to do more videos on my site. He’s certainly one to watch and learn from.
I think too many people take themselves too serious, so they don’t want the ridicule of failure, and you have to fail a lot to be successful. Also, if you don’t love, become a geek about what you do, live and breath, you won’t be successful. Too many people want success, but don’t have a substanial product, service, talent to achieve it.
This dude is loud, sure, but love people with that passion and energy for what they do. What they are into. Great blog
Passion really is a key ingredient to success. You’d have to be deeply passionate and love what you’re doing to be able to withstand the challenges. Thanks for sharing this! Excellent post!
I agree passion is the key to success. Otherwise, motivation is going to be required as opposed to inspiration. Motivation is hard. Inspiration come naturally.
I saw few of his video and I must say he keep things so simple for the viewers. This man rocks.
His store is not far from my home and it’s awesome. Amazing to learn a year after shopping there that he had this whole other thing going on – the online sales and the social networking – all this and great wine too?
Gary has pioneered a completely new way to communicate with potential consumers by positioning himself as an unbiased resource on the products he sells.
I love it!
Gary V has passion. That is the main ingredient to his success. He was even better at catching onto video as being the medium to propel his message and sales thru the roof.
Thanks for all comments, glad you enjoyed the article!
@dawn – It just shows how good he is at what he does. People that know him online are attracted without even knowing anything about his offline store, while offline customers are attracted without knowing anything about his online empire. It’s a very interesting story…
Hi,
I have to agree with everything in this article. Find your passion, that just makes it a lot easier to talk about. Second most important thing IMHO is to get the word out.
Creating the content is one thing, but letting people know where to find it is a different aspect. Make publicity for what you are creating, …
I have found my passion. And I have started blogging about it. And I think that it is a controversial subject that will evoke admiration amongst my tribe-to-be and fear amongst my future detractors.
But the problem right now in terms of following the “book of Vaynerchuk” (I like my rhyming there) is that I can’t reveal my identity because I work in a job where it may cause problems if I’m seen to be doing other stuff.
And so I’ve developed my Masked Financier alter ego.
Feedback and suggestions about my dilemma would be appreciated!
Gary is really an inspiration and a great model of how to build your personal brand online.
I love his charisma and his personality really comes out in his vlogs.
Its interesting to go back to episode #1 and see how he has changed… he really has developed over the time and actually become more charismatic, so for people who think they dont have his personality, check it out, he didn't start out like he is today.
Keep it real and let's make money!
all these kind words are massively humbling……..THANK YOU ALL!
nice job for Gary Vaynerchuk.Will follow some tips of him.
Wow making a living by being a Wino. Is that called following in the family Tradition? Kinda Like Hank Jr?
Great Inspiration to keep on getting better at what I do.
Thanks
I have to agree with everything in this article. Find your passion, that just makes it a lot easier to talk about. Second most important thing IMHO is to get the word out.
Creating the content is one thing, but letting people know where to find it is a different aspect. Make publicity for what you are creating
I saw his video and I must say he keep things so simple for the viewers. This man rocks.
Best Regards, Joe!
Great enthusiasm.
Like you said it is important that we all make sure to be active in generating traffic to our own blogs. This man changed the face of marketing for the wine industry.
It raises a question for anyone really, how do you set yourself apart from everybody else?
Your personality is what sets you apart from everyone else, personality is unique, so try to include it into your blog as much as possible.
Thanks for your valuable tips. I agree zeal is the key to success. Anyway your tips is absolutely right, according to me we should write blog in the topic we are expert/ specialized on. Otherwise we can’t.
Gary is seriously an inspiration to me. He consistently shows his dedication to his “audience” and is one of the hardest working people out there. I think that’s where I find the biggest inspiration: Gary’s work ethic. But also his thoughts on consistently creating content. He deserves all his success.