Gary Vaynerchuk isn’t one for sugarcoating the truth to make it easier for you to swallow. He’d rather jam it down your throat. After all, he’s the f-bomb-dropping entrepreneur who turned his family’s wine business into a $60 million a year company, then launched his own digital marketing agency, Vaynermedia. He knows his stuff, and in his latest book, Crushing It, he’s not holding back on sharing what he’s learned — and why so few people follow in his footsteps.

To put it simply, they don’t put in the work. Vaynerchuk eviscerates the common excuses people give for not following through on their dreams. He declares most of them BS, veering on “Are you f***ing kidding me?!” territory. What sets him — and others like him, he asserts — is exactly what Rihanna sang about: work, work, work, work, werk. If you want results, you’ve got to make sacrifices, starting with your night and weekend TV time. Cut that out, as well as scrolling social media, leisure reading, and any other hobbies you may have. There’s some room for moderation — keep your family first, he says — but beyond that, you need to carve out a couple hours a day to build your brand.

But what does that even mean, really — “building your brand?!”

It’s choosing your ‘pillar’ social network — the one that’ll resonate most with your audience, be it Instagram for a nail artist or YouTube for a plumber — and homing in on that. It’s building a content strategy, as Vaynerchuk asserts, using that network as your focal point for carving out your niche, while slowly creating audiences on other platforms, too. (For example, the plumber may create funny, jargon-free YouTube tutorials on heavily searched terms, like unclogging a faucet, establishing trust and credibility within his/her community. On Facebook, the plumber can use local ads to target people in the area, while sharing memes, coupons, and general home-care advice. And so on.)

Those 2-3 hours a day start with developing a content strategy, and a way to differentiate yourself, and grow from there. Part of that time should be spent collaborating with influencers online, starting conversations (Twitter’s a great place for that!). Another part is just listening and replying to any messages that come your way. The final part is devoting a little time to trying new things, be it emerging social networks and platforms, like using Google Assistant or Amazon’s Alexa voice skills to reach people.

Admittedly, since every chapter is filled with crowd-sourced stories of how Vaynerchuk’s original book, Crush It, jumpstarted fans’ businesses, there were times when I felt compelled to toss the book down. I should be reading Crush It, I thought. But the takeaways in this tome are every bit as important — and they’re more relevant to the changes in today’s digital landscape.

It got me thinking about what we could be doing better.

• Our pillar content: weekly newsletter link roundup to eliminate the Sunday gloom
• Potential pivot for pillar content: YouTube/Facebook Live video series on one cool thing to do each Monday
• Areas I’d like to grow: Dabble in Facebook ads to attract an audience outside of the typical user, create an Alexa/Google Assistant skill featuring a fresh reason why today doesn’t suck, use hashtags to increase Instagram audience and influence
• Big area of improvement: Bringing in more collaborators to feature, engaging more on Twitter, posting more consistently (Mondays & Wednesdays!)

You can pick up a copy of Crushing It on Amazon or at most major bookstores.

 

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