The $100M Entrepreneur Podcast

The Future of Social Media from Gary Vee

9 min
Sep 10, 20257 months ago
Listen to Episode
Summary

Gary Vee discusses the future of social media, emphasizing LinkedIn's underpriced attention for B2B companies, the rise of live social shopping, and YouTube's dominance in long-form content. He also shares his philosophy on financial freedom, defining success as autonomy rather than wealth, and offers parenting advice centered on merit, consequences, and unconditional love.

Insights
  • LinkedIn represents a massive ROI opportunity for B2B companies due to underpriced attention and high-value audiences, with a single customer acquisition justifying years of investment
  • Live social shopping (QVCification) is the next major social media trend, following China's 10-year head start and gaining traction through TikTok Shop and platforms like What Not
  • Financial freedom is achievable at $60,000 annually through disciplined spending and lifestyle choices, not absolute income levels
  • Meta's push into AR glasses and societal burnout on social media suggest we're at the apex of traditional social media consumption
  • Parenting success depends on teaching merit, consequences, and accountability rather than protecting children from adversity and failure
Trends
Live social shopping and commerce integration across Meta, YouTube, and TikTok platformsShift from short-form to long-form content dominance on YouTubeRegulatory pressure on social media and digital attention in schoolsAR/VR glasses as the next computing platform replacing smartphonesDeclining creator supply on LinkedIn creating arbitrage opportunity for B2B marketersSocial media burnout and user attention fatigue driving platform regulationMerit-based parenting and resilience-building as counter to participation trophy culture
Topics
LinkedIn B2B marketing strategy and ROILive social shopping and commerceTikTok Shop and social commerce platformsYouTube long-form content strategyMeta AR glasses and future computingSocial media regulation and burnoutFinancial freedom and lifestyle designB2B customer acquisition on social platformsCreator economy and content supplyParenting philosophy and child resilienceSuccess definition and autonomyShort-form vs long-form content strategyAttention economy and platform dynamicsConsequences and accountability in child developmentSelf-esteem and parental expectations
Companies
Meta
Making a hard push into AR glasses technology; expected to be the next major computing platform
TikTok
TikTok Shop is driving live social shopping trend; platform for viral consumable products
YouTube
Described as the most important platform for long-form content; expected to continue growing
LinkedIn
Highlighted as underpriced attention opportunity for B2B companies with high-value customer acquisition
What Not
Independent live shopping app gaining significant traction in the social commerce space
Facebook
Referenced as historical comparison point for LinkedIn's current market position and attention dynamics
Twitter
Expected to participate in live social shopping trend alongside Meta and YouTube
People
Gary Vee
Main speaker discussing social media trends, business strategy, and parenting philosophy
MrBeast
Referenced as the dominant creator on YouTube, exemplifying long-form content success
Quotes
"I think you can have financial freedom making 60,000 dollars. You just have to live within the means of 60,000."
Gary Vee
"For LinkedIn, you get one customer out of LinkedIn for a B2B company and it makes four years of investing in LinkedIn worth it."
Gary Vee
"I would define success as waking up in the morning and being in full control of what you do."
Gary Vee
"The QVCification of social media is so real."
Gary Vee
"I believe YouTube is, in a lot of ways, YouTube is the most important platform."
Gary Vee
Full Transcript
This is very nuanced, but I'm gonna say it. And I know a lot of people are gonna scoff at it. But I think you can have financial freedom making 60,000 dollars. You just have to live within the means of 60,000. Yes, you could go viral as a consumable product on TikTok and that will crush, but for LinkedIn, you get one customer out of LinkedIn for a B2B company and it makes four years of investing in LinkedIn worth it. Brother, you know this, we know millionaires that live paycheck to paycheck. I'll say some stuff that is not popular right now. Buddy, just wanna take a couple of minutes and just do a couple of things. Firstly, it's fucking free. Yes. It's like, that's gotta be the next book. I feel like that's- I think you're right. It's like- And I'll tell you why, I apologize, but I'll tell you why I'm taking this tone. I see the end of it. I see the end. I think that Metta is making a hard push to these glasses. I think they're gonna pull it off. If I had to bet, I think a lot of us over the next decade will no longer have the telephone. People are starting to get burned out, right? So I think we're gonna start regulating. Look what's going on in schools. All of a sudden, all that attention is not like, you can see it. I feel like we're on the other side of the hill, right? Or we're right now in this moment at the Apex and so I'm pushing it harder because I don't want them to miss the final chapters. You said LinkedIn's where Facebook was. Yeah. Give me that, because LinkedIn is still not getting the eyeballs time-wise that Metta does. No, it's not. What I mean by that was in 2011 and 12, which is what I referenced there, the supply and demand of how much attention was on Facebook got it, so it's scale. To your point, you're right. There was more attention on Facebook and 12 than there is today on LinkedIn. However, there was also a lot more people like me making tons of content for it. There's less of that going on, so the equilibrium of the underpriced attention on LinkedIn's remarkable. There's also a difference. The value of the LinkedIn audience is dramatically better than the Facebook. Yeah, I'm right. For what we do for a living, for what many of the people in that room did, I mean, yes, you could go viral as a consumable product on TikTok and that will crush, but for LinkedIn, you get one customer out of LinkedIn for a B2B company and it makes four years investing in LinkedIn worth it. Yeah, it's definitely the case. So when we look at what's next, you're famous for predicting. Yeah. Where do you see social going? Where do you see? One thing we didn't touch on today, because once I saw how many B2B marketers were in there, but live social shopping. Yeah, yeah. The QVCification of social media is so real. What about clients here built their business from a little store to tens of millions of pounds by live shopping every week? What happened in China 10 years ago is now happening for the rest of the world. TikTok shop, there's an app called What Not that is getting very big as an independent. I can't imagine Meta and YouTube and Twitter sitting on the sidelines. If you sell something, sneakers, perfume, ties, dummy bears, you need to start looking at live social shopping. I think it's gonna be next. YouTube. Yeah. Where is it going? I believe YouTube is, in a lot of ways, YouTube is the most important platform. It's different. It's not short form content. Obviously there are shorts, but look, Mr. Beast is the guy and that's his domain. It is a place I can't imagine people not investing in because for long form content, an hour, 30 minutes, this 10, 15, 20 minutes, it's a requirement. I think it will only continue to get bigger. One question I always ask every guest that I chat to is, how do you define success today and how did that change over your lifetime? I think I'm gonna give a pretty unusual answer to this. I would argue the most consistent thing about me is that it's pretty much the same. I would define success as waking up in the morning and being in full control of what you do. There's so many people that will wake up tomorrow that have to go to a job. I had never scored my money. I felt like, I feel you can have, and I mean this, this is very nuanced, but I'm gonna say it. And I know a lot of people are gonna scoff at it, but I think you can have financial freedom making $60,000 a year. You just have to live within the means of 60,000. So you may not own your home, you may have an apartment. You may not have a Mercedes, you might take public transportation, but you can have freedom. And I think most people go into jail and traps. And the more money they make, they get even, you know this, you and I now have some grays, right? We've come up and built, right? Brother, you know this, we know millionaires that live paycheck to paycheck. So I've always defined success of having the ability to have freedom. And I did that for myself when my dad was paying me 48,000 a year, because I lived in a bullshit apartment for 800 bucks a month, bought nothing and had money and freedom. Could leave my dad's store to the next day because I could start something else and do rent. So yeah, I think I define it today in that, I would say the only other nuances I did not think about leaving a positive deposit on society at 25. I think about that very heavily now as Gary Vee and being successful at that or accomplishing that at scale is success. Final question, parent, wealthy parent, raising great kids, top two or three things. Stop giving them money after they're 18 to 22. Mine was 21, I cut them at 21. You are, those kids are so lucky and they can't see it at first because they've got friends that don't have that happening. That's number one, number two, resilience, adversity. Don't over-coddle children, they have to lose. I'll say some stuff that is not popular right now. I think it's wonderful when kids get into fights in grade school. You have to learn, like you have all these people talking so much shit on the internet, you know why? When you talk shit on the internet, nobody's punching you in the face. I think there needs to be, I think that there needs to be consequences. I'll give you another one, you know this, we grew up in an era where if you did something wrong, depending on the parent you had, either they smacked you at bare minimum, they grounded you. Parents don't even ground anymore. You have kids that are 12 talking fucking cursing at their, if I looked at my mom wrong, curse, disrespect, if I, fuck, if I thought about looking at my mom wrong, I was dead. Wait till your father gets home. Oh my God, that one was mine. That was for me too. I was scared shitless of my dad. I believe that raising good kids is teaching them that the world is built on merit. No eighth place trophies. Fuck a second place trophy, you lost. Like get into that. And the people have demonized that, like I know somebody just saw that clip and they're like, ah, ah nothing, that's fucking life. There's winning and losing, that's good. Your kids are gonna be a loser because they lost and they know they lost. They're gonna be a loser if you teach them that losing doesn't matter. Consequences, results, merit, truth, accountability and loving them, like actually loving them. Not the number one mistake a parent makes is they have their self-esteem wrapped up in their child's accomplishments. Oh yeah, I see that way too often. Yeah, you do. Having five kids, you can't. Cause like with five kids, it's like, and even my oldest daughter, she says to me, dad, I'm like, dude, you're my practice kid. I don't know, I messed shit up with you. But the other day I'm sitting in the car and I yelled at one of my kids the night before cause I was in a shit, and in the car on the way to school cause I drive my kids to school every day. And I sit there and I said, kids, I gotta apologize, I lost her last night, it was not good. And listen, that's human. What I would say is when kids know you love them for them, not so that you can brag about them to others, they smell it. The big mistake a lot of parents make is they push their kids to fancy universities cause they want it. They want to go out to dinner and be like, my son goes to Oxford. They don't, they don't see it parents that they're using their children. I will, I do, I have my own self-esteem. I don't need my children to provide it for me. And that actually is the healthiest prop out of all the things I do as a father. And I've got plenty of shortcomings. That one I'm drilling, I'm drilling that one. And they can smell that.