Crushing It – by Gary Vaynerchuk

After reading and reviewing Gary’s first book, Crush It!, we were eagerly awaiting the follow-up. Crushing It goes deeper into the eight essential components that are required to build a great business as an influencer and then dives deep into all of the current hot platforms you should be spreading content on.

Crushing It Summary 

How great entrepreneurs built their businesses and how you can do too. What works for some people may not work for you. That is why self-awareness is so vital – you have to be true to yourself at all times. There are parents who forced their kids to stop playing video games because they distracted them from their studies. Those kids may have grown up to make a decent enough living but doing something they just tolerate or even hate. They could have been a professional gamer instead. He cannot do anything to make you more creative. But is planning to put you in the right frame of mind when you release the creativity, you succeed.

The path is all yours

In Crush It, the influencer does not appear once, but that is what the book was all about. Youtube’s daily viewership is close to 1.25 billion hours a day. One in every 5 minutes spent on mobile is on facebook. Every minute 65,900 videos and photos are posted to Instagram. Over 3 billion snaps are created every day on Snapchat.

Your audience is waiting for you 

The internet got rid of the middleman, allowing every industry to go direct to consumer

Snapchat, insta and facebook and other social media platforms are the new NBC, ABC, and CBS

Many started young and single, but some already had kids when they decided to double down and crush it. Several gave up lucrative jobs to devote themselves to their passion. What this should tell you is that if you are not crushing it, it is not because you are too old. It is because you have not fully committed to taking the leap yet..It will take mental capacity, your time and your leisure.

What (still) matters AKA Crush It

Intent

A commitment to service,   desire to provide value and love of teaching. You have selfish needs and desires. But if you are 51% altruistic and 49% selfish, you will break out

Authenticity

Your intent will be reflected in your authenticity. Authenticity is a welcome relief to people who always feel like they are being taken advantage of, or only hearing a small part of the whole story. Do not try and fake it. Eventually, you will get shown to who you are. You need to figure out the platforms to give out what you have to give. The more authentic you are, the more people will be willing to forgive your inevitable mistakes and stumbles. When you disrespect your customers you are one social media post away from having your whole business tumble down and getting down on knee – socially.

Passion

There are many people working, jobs that make them heaps of money are not happy, but there is not anyone who works around their passion and is not loving life. Passion helps you get through the times when you need to eat shit

Patience

To live with your passion will probably require that you go slower than you may want to bide your time. You have no reason to act like something special until you have something special to show for it. Even then, do not act special, the moment you do, things will act in the opposite direction. That means be a bigger man or woman than everyone around you. That means your customer is always right. Do not take vacations for years and only time off is for family and important friends -Put yourself last, Once you reach your business goals, then you can start living it up

Speed

Patience is for the long term, speed is for the short term. Be unafraid to make mistakes having a crack at new things

Work

When you first start, there is no time for leisure. If you want to crush it, there is no time for youtube videos or shooting the shit in the break room or an hour and a half lunch. That is why entrepreneurship is seen as a young person’s game, it takes a lot of stamina to get your brand and business off the ground. Your only way out is work ungodly amounts between 7 – 2 am plus all day Saturday and Sundays. Ideally, you will be building a business around the thing you love to do for fun and relaxation, so it would not feel like losing your leisure time. You have to start deciding how you will spend your time. Start by blocking off the hours to spend on your obligations. .

Crushing it follows the laws of thermodynamics, whatever energy you put into something, will manifest in equal amounts when it comes out

Attention

Where are the eyeballs going? People always underestimate the new thing, from the internet to social networks. Do not become so comfortable on the platform you are on. Keep experimenting even when you are sure that you are doing right.

The eighth essential – content

Do not post the same content across multiple platforms. Develop high-quality native micro-content . There is no way around it. Your content must be amazing. But you do not have to wait until you’re an expert, quite the contrary. Make the learning process part of your content

Use Snapchat, Instagram stories, youtube videos, facebook live, many times a day to share the world through your eyes. Let your audience meet your cranky uncle, let them see what you are eating for lunch, let them follow as you slog through the work you hate. Take them on vacations and business trips. Think of yourself as the star of this show and the production company. Most people did not know what they were doing when they started out.

Document:-

Documenting is about preparing for how people will watch you 10 years from now

Cassius Clay was only 21 when he declared I am the greatest. What can you share on a smaller level? Daniel Markham of the ‘What’s Inside?’  Youtube channel, launched several channels before he finally put up the one that got people’s attention. Once it started gaining traction, he applied everything he learned from his failures to improve the channel’s content and monetization strategy. It now has 5 million subscribers. If enough of us start to document, we can destroy the myth of overnight success.

What’s stopping you?

Fear of failure is what most people say they are afraid of. But they are more likely to fear being judged by people who’s opinion means something to them.

First, do this

No matter what kind of influencer you want to become, you need a facebook page, any other social media account, just start upon sign-ups and create your profile and pages.

Get discovered

Breakthrough apps can be developed in two ways :-

a). By smart use of hashtags, which requires a very long grind

b). Direct messaging, offering something of value to people, in return for attention

Musically

The users are young and creative and eager to grow up . Most likely to be underestimated.

Original music, comedy skits, educational videos, creates clips and compiles them into stories.

Even though they are young, those 13-year-old grow up to be 18 years and to 25-year-old entrepreneur.

It does not matter if it disappears. It matters that it exists. If you are seeking to build your audience, go where your audience goes.

Musically 101

• Work on those hashtags
• These are the key to discoverability

Snapchat

For teens, it has been worth figuring out, because you do not want to hang where your mum hangs out.

And you want to lock your room . On Twitter we are expected to be insightful and clever, facebook we show off our families and vacations and on Instagram, we build relationships through images and short videos . Snapchat, however is where we put our throwaway content

Snaptchat Tips:-

Draw awareness from your other channels

Write multiple blog posts about snapchat

Gain visibility by creating snapchat events

Pay for google adds getting ‘who should I follow on snapchat

Twitter

The strategy for twitter has been the same for 9 years .It is difficult for consumers to hear the whole story on twitter .The constant chatter and massive volume has been great to spread ideas, but the glut has made it harder for people to break out as twitter personalities.

Twitter Specs:-

.Youtube

Youtube is the most important platform for building a personal brand. Though Insta is closing the gap quickly. Facebook is investing big time into video and will be working its ass off to compete.

Vlogging is a terrific way to document instead of creates . This means literally anyone can do it

For Gary, in episode 57 he began changing it up, talking about the other things he is passionate about

He turned down network opportunities, stuck his finger up at the establishment, as his voice rose and got a lot faster.

Video optimization process:-

a).Titles: Does it actively represent the content?

b).Descriptions: Are the first two lines keyword optimized? Are their links to similar videos in the playlist?

c).Tags. Are there at least 10 tags in the description? Do the tags represent the video content? Are the tags valuable and have high search volumes but low competition?

d).Thumbnails. Do they reflect the content of the videos?

e).YouTube cards. Will they drive traffic to other good videos you have posted?

Channel optimization facts:-

Banner- Description needs to be keyword optimized -Social media links need to be clickable -Playlists, does the channel have custom playlists -Channel trailer. Does it reflect the content and genre?

Facebook 

If you are going to build a brand, you need to have a facebook page . There are almost 2.45 billion active users, half use it daily . There are 1.74 billion active users on mobile. Facebook gives you the gift of flexibility . Written content and photographs do not work on Youtube.

Instagram allows for a maximum of one minute videos . With every share, you are building awareness in a native way . You can boost things for 13$ and get 2600 impressions, depending on targeting choices.Zuckerberg called video a megatrend. When facebook wants something to work, it puts all its support behind it . The effect on the social media scope is generally something like a tectonic plate shift ,

It is underpriced for all the attention on it .Facebook live is the next thing It is good to get interaction and comments . Collaborate to share original content on their platform or to work with you in other ways.

Instagram

Anyone wishing to build a personal brand should be on instagram Search , click, investigate, DM, for 6-7 hours a day . Every lunch break, in the bathroom, or when you are waiting to pick up your kid from dance class and in the 20 minutes you have got before the enchiladas come out of the oven . Only a fraction of the people you reach out to will respond, but that is all you need.

Podcasts

Podcasts are amazing because:-

1. Most people are not comfortable on camera. They think they look stupid. They worry about their hair and lighting. None of it matters.
2. Podcasts sell time, which is why everyone should create one.

In this hyper-speed world, multi-tasking is everything, it is a lot easier to listen to a podcast while you check emails and pay your bills than to watch videos.

Podcasts Reach

a).  Promote your show through social media channels

b). Encourage symbiotic relationships with others who have bigger platforms than you

c). iTunes are opening podcasting analytics so you know when they tune out

Voice first

What is my Alexa skill going to be? .Podcasts fill brains during the long periods when we are quiet . Voice platforms are going to fill our brains at the intersections of our lives, those blips of times that used to be lost to forgettable activities like brushing your teeth, or sorting through mail, or even checking phone notifications .

Voice trends:-

Google revealed that in 2016  20% of the search was through voice. This will rise fast, Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant are the big players. Your flash briefing will be a one minute version of your one podcast. Very soon more brands will jump on these platforms and it will get harder to dent other people’s awareness. Do not let the other guys snap up the cheap real estate. Your one-minute audio tip of the day could be the thing that compels a person to put on your podcast in the morning commute. Amazon is going to pump money into this platform. Five years from now, the moment will be gone. If you do not play offense all the time, every day, every year, no matter how successful you become someday you will wind up playing defense.

Crushing it Conclusion:-

Crushing it is a book that emphasizes on the importance of social media for generating awareness and building your business profile. Gary Vaynerchuk depicts all about the modes of promotion whether it be content, voice or video optimization.