The dominance of social media has brought the rise of the “personal brand,” your online presence and personality. In the early 2000s, Gary Vaynerchuk launched a personal brand that helped him grow his family’s wine business and turned him into one of the first social media influencers. In Crush It!, Vaynerchuk argues that everyone needs an engaging digital presence to stay relevant in their career or to launch a new career by monetizing their personal brand. He provides step-by-step instructions for building and optimizing your personal brand online, from choosing your niche to monetizing your content.
How This Guide Updates and Amends the Book
Social media and digital marketing are constantly evolving, and there have been significant changes since this book was published in 2009. To make Vaynerchuk’s advice clearer and more relevant for readers today, we have updated, amended, and reorganized it.
We’ve updated some outdated details about platforms and features. Where possible, we’ve also highlighted the underlying principles that still hold true, even when the specifics are out-of-date.
We’ve added some strategies to make Vaynerchuk’s recommendations more actionable.
We use the term “influencers” to refer to people who monetize their personal brand (or aspire to do so). The term was not widely used when this book was published.
We have also rearranged and consolidated some information for clarity.
Before launching into Vaynerchuk’s advice, let’s briefly explore how he went from selling wine to building a digital-media empire.
Vaynerchuk and his parents immigrated from Belarus to the U.S. in 1978, when he was three years old. In 1983, Vaynerchuk’s father opened a liquor store in suburban New Jersey and, when Vaynerchuk was 15, he began working in the family store. Although beer and liquor made up most of their sales, Vaynerchuk recognized that there was a culture around wine, so he began focusing on how he could tap into that community to grow the store’s wine business.
While in college, Vaynerchuk got his first glimpse of the internet and immediately recognized that he could use the web to grow the store’s wine business. A year later, he suggested to his father that they sell wine online. From there, it was a short road to rapid growth.
In 1997, he launched winelibrary.com; within a few years, the store’s revenue rose from $4 million to $20 million. In 2005, he began focusing on how to leverage the rising popularity of video blogs and social sites (like MySpace and YouTube) to increase wine sales. In 2006, he launched Wine Library TV, a video blog aimed at creating a community around wine.
Vaynerchuk’s Road to Success May Not Fit Everyone
Vaynerchuk’s casual and sometimes brash approach to tasting and talking about wine in his videos shook up the wine industry, simultaneously upsetting traditionalists and making wine more accessible to newbies. As the vlog’s following grew, Vaynerchuk’s experience and success led him to co-found VaynerMedia, a full-service advertising agency specializing in digital marketing, in 2009—the same year that this book was published. Known to his millions of social media followers as Gary Vee, he continues to be a prominent social media influencer, focusing primarily on digital marketing and business development. As of 2021, he is worth $200 million.
However, critics say that Vaynerchuk’s work-around-the-clock approach is unsustainable and unscalable. While Vaynerchuk asserts that passion fuels the tireless work schedule, it may be the case that passion fuels his incessant schedule—but that might not work for everyone.
Vaynerchuk argues that everyone needs to optimize their personal brand to stay relevant in the professional world, regardless of their industry or professional aspirations. A lively personal brand is mandatory because the internet has changed the business world, and it continues to alter the landscape of virtually every industry.
(Shortform note: Business consultant Tom Peters coined the term “personal brand” in 1997, more than a decade before this book’s publication. However, while Vaynerchuk uses the term to refer to your digital presence, Peters wrote about personal branding in the workplace. He argued that workers’ brands—essentially, their professional reputations—must project their unique value as “free agents,” independent of their job title.)
According to Vaynerchuk, anyone can benefit from a personal brand—for instance:
Now, we’ll review Vaynerchuk’s eight steps for building and monetizing a thriving personal brand.
Vaynerchuk repeatedly argues that your personal brand must be true to who you are—and that starts with your niche. While it’s tempting to choose a topic based on its marketability, he insists that you must let your passion guide you because that will not only resonate with your audience but also keep you motivated and interested in this work during the inevitable long hours and late nights.
(Shortform note: In contrast to Vaynerchuk, Cal Newport argues in So Good They Can’t Ignore You that the idea that following your passion will lead you to love your work is flawed. Instead, he says that the way to find fulfilling work is to hone your skills, and use them as currency to secure a job that gives you autonomy and purpose.)
Vaynerchuk writes that any interest can be fodder for a personal brand—from accounting to carpentry. It may be an extension of your professional expertise, or it may be a hobby, but as long as you’re enthusiastic about it and creative about how you present the information, you will be able to gain digital traction.
For example, Vaynerchuk took an unorthodox approach to tasting and reviewing wines on Wine Library TV: He wanted to make the world of wine accessible to everyone, so he used casual language and made familiar references. Instead of saying that he was “nosing” the wine when taking a whiff before the first sip, he called it a “sniffy-sniff”—and when describing wines’ flavor notes, Vaynerchuk sometimes detected hints of Cap’n Crunch. (Shortform note: He even dedicated an episode to pairing wine with cereal.)
How to Choose Your Niche
Some of the biggest niches for influencer marketing include beauty, fashion, travel, parenting, and how to make money online—which Vaynerchuk has focused on since the late 2000s. However, as in the traditional business world, the bigger the market the fiercer the competition. Alternatively, there are a number of successful influencers monetizing obscure niches, like Disney fandom and copywriting.
Not sure what your passion is? Consider these questions:
How do you spend your free time?
What are your top three interests?
What kind of people would you want to talk to about your interests? (In other words, who is your ideal audience?)
Your website will be the home base for your personal brand; all of your social media posts and outreach should ultimately point people to your website. Vaynerchuk recommends these steps for creating a website:
(Shortform note: The #FollowMeTo travel blog is one example of a brand that has created a dynamic website at the center of several thriving social media channels. The bloggers—a married couple who travel the world together—share stunning visuals on their #FollowMeTo YouTube and Instagram accounts (which all have identical handles). The social media eye candy all points back to their website, where the bloggers not only document their journey but also provide travel guides for cities around the globe.)
Once you know what you’re going to talk about, you must decide how you’re going to present it. When choosing between text, audio, and video, Vaynerchuk suggests basing the choice on your personality and comfort level, rather than the nature of your niche. (Shortform note: Despite Vaynerchuk’s advice to base this choice solely on your personal strengths, you should also consider where the audience for your niche is liveliest, which medium offers the best presentation for your topic, the time and effort required for each medium, and the cost associated with each, such as a camera and editing software.)
Expand Your Brand to (Almost) Every Medium
While Vaynerchuck talks about choosing one medium, entrepreneur and influencer Pat Flynn advocates expanding to multiple forms of media as you grow. With his “Being Everywhere” strategy, Flynn argues that your brand should be in every medium on virtually every platform for constant and varied exposure that will quickly grow your audience.
However, Flynn clarifies that if you try to be everywhere right away, you’ll be spread too thin to build a substantial audience on any platform. Instead, he recommends that you
Start with a blog.
Build your audience. While he doesn’t specify a threshold, he says that you need a “sizable, respectable” following before expanding.
Learn from your audience. Find out what other media your audience prefers and let that guide you, adding one platform or content type at a time.
Flynn launched his personal brand with a blog in 2008. Then, he added a YouTube channel in 2009 and created a podcast in 2010. Each new branch was a natural extension of the previous—and everything pointed back to his blog. As a result, his following ballooned.
Despite urging people to “be everywhere,” Flynn actually discourages being on every platform, because not all of them will substantially grow your following. Instead, aim to expand to every platform that (most of) your target audience uses. (The Pew Research Center has social media usage data for a range of demographics.)
Vaynerchuk recommends having multiple platforms. He advises using each one strategically to maximize its strengths, and having them all direct fans back to your blog. (Shortform note: Although he doesn’t clarify, “blog” here seems to refer to either a written blog, vlog, or podcast; Vaynerchuk often refers to written and video “blogs.”) He breaks down the pros and cons of the top platforms of the day, but because much has changed since the book’s publication, we will instead highlight the key features to look for when choosing a platform.
Video
Blogging
Social
How to Choose Which Platforms to Use
In addition to Pat Flynn’s advice to post on the platforms that your audience uses most, there are several other factors you may also consider. Ask yourself these questions:
What are your top one or two goals on social media? For instance, are you trying to educate people, build an audience for your business, or establish your credibility in your niche?
What are each platform’s strengths and weaknesses? For example, Twitter is great for reaching an international audience, and LinkedIn is ideal for promoting B2B services.
What’s working for your competitors? Look at which platforms your competitors use, what and how often they post, how big their following is, and how engaged their audience is.
Now that you have the building blocks, it's time to start creating blogs, Tweets, posts, videos, or podcasts about your topic. Vaynerchuk emphasizes that everything you post is a tool for attracting people to your personal brand and enticing them to become part of your growing audience. (Shortform note: Taking this a step further, when people share and view your content, it boosts your search engine optimization (SEO) score, which makes it easier for people to find you online. This creates a virtuous cycle.)
To make compelling content, Vaynerchuk says you must:
The StoryBrand Formula for Creating Your Marketing Story
Storytelling is a central strategy in marketing. In Building a StoryBrand, Donald Miller argues that storytelling is the most effective way to market a brand because it makes information engaging and easily digestible.
Miller developed a seven-part formula for crafting a story that connects with customers and makes them believe that your product will improve their lives.
Your customer wants something, and encounters a...
Problem that stops them from getting it. They need...
Your brand, which has a...
Plan to help them solve the problem. Your brand must give a...
Call to action that clearly states...
What’s at stake if the customer doesn’t act, and...
What they could gain if they do act.
With good content, you can build the audience you need to be able to monetize your brand. Vaynerchuk notes that, when it comes to creating community, quality beats quantity: A few loyal, engaged fans are likely to draw more followers than a large crowd of passive subscribers. (Shortform note: When it comes time to monetize your brand, many advertisers also recognize the value of quality over quantity. A 2017 report on influencer marketing revealed that “micro-influencers'' with narrow niches and devoted audiences of 10,000 to 1 million followers often drive more traction than celebrity endorsements.)
After you’ve created and posted some content, Vaynerchuk provides step-by-step instructions for building your community. Repeat these steps continually to consistently grow your audience.
You’re well on your way to having a thriving, profitable personal brand—now you just have to keep it up. Vaynerchuk suggests tempering your expectations on several fronts.
How to Get Your First 1,000 Followers
While quality trumps quantity when it comes to your audience, your follower count is nonetheless a critical metric for your personal brand. Whether you’re on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or another social network, there are a few key steps that can help you reach the 1,000-follower milestone.
Thoroughly fill out your profile—including your website, location, profile photo, and an engaging bio sprinkled with keywords and hashtags.
Cross-pollinate: Post a link to your account on your other platforms (for instance, tweet a link to your Instagram page), and include links to your social pages in your email signature.
Add “follow” buttons for your social media accounts to your blog or website.
Once you’ve established your credibility and gained an engaged community of followers, you have leverage to start monetizing your passion. These are some ways to earn income through your personal brand.
1) Advertising—Vaynerchuk recommends cold-calling companies that are relevant to your niche and asking them to advertise with you directly. (Shortform note: Some brands will have ready-made content for you to post, while others will want you to create the content. If you have to create the sponsored content, be sure to charge more. )
Be Transparent About Your Endorsements
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Guidelines require social media influencers to disclose whenever they have a personal affiliation or paid partnership with a brand they’re endorsing. In an effort to combat deceptive ads online, the policy is fairly thorough:
Influencers must disclose if they receive free products, discounts, or perks for mentioning a brand’s products.
Likes, tags, pins, and other forms of mentioning a brand can all be considered endorsements.
Disclosures must be easy to spot—superimposed on pictures and stated in videos in simple, clear terms.
Even with the disclosure, influencers’ endorsements must be honest; they can’t talk about a product they haven’t tried or praise a product they hate.
2) Affiliate programs—Connect with businesses that sell products you believe in, promote their products, and get a commission when people use your link or code to buy the product. (Shortform note: Since you will be representing the brand, expect the company to thoroughly vet you before partnering for an affiliate program. Brands typically want to see that you have a positive reputation and that you have a large following (at least 5,000 on Instagram).)
3) Merchandise—Create your own products with your logo. They can relate to your niche (like resistance bands, if you have a fitness brand) or be promotional (like T-shirts). (Shortform note: Since authenticity is key to online success, selling your own merchandise is better for your brand than selling someone else’s. Alternatively, you could get the best of both worlds by partnering with an existing brand to design a new product or product line.)
4) Speaking engagements—Find a conference on your niche, think of an original theme, and call the organizers to offer a free presentation. Vaynerchuk says you can start charging after you have five or six under your belt, and, in the meantime, you’ll build credibility and gain exposure to an interested audience. (Shortform note: Building on Vaynerchuk’s advice, look locally for your first few speaking gigs—you’re likely to have more contacts in your area, and if it’s unpaid, you’ll minimize your travel expenses. When you land your first gig, leverage it to get more: Ask the organizers to record your presentation so that you can use it to promote yourself as a speaker, and ask them to provide a testimonial.)
5) Seminars—Host events that give you a chance to share your expertise. Be creative and look for opportunities to partner with other entrepreneurs or local businesses—for example, if you have a fitness brand, put on an informational and training session at a local gym. (Shortform note: Seminars have an earnings ceiling—you can only put on so many seminars each month and year. For a more flexible and profitable approach, many influencers are now developing online courses that bottle their personality and knowledge for mass consumption.)
6) Consulting—As you gain followers and credibility, others will start asking you for advice about your niche or on building a following. Charge them for your time and expertise. (Shortform note: Even when consulting, continue to focus on your niche; while you may be an expert at social media branding as a fitness influencer, your skills and tactics may not work for a travel influencer.)
7) Articles—Write articles for blogs, newsletters, and magazines related to your niche. (Shortform note: First, use Buzzsumo to find publications in your niche. Second, gather three to five samples of your writing to show your chops; you can use past blog posts or write new pieces. Then, send samples to the publication’s editors along with a short, straightforward message with your name, niche, and a snapshot of your online presence and credibility.)
8) TV and book deals—When your credibility and notoriety have grown enough, you’ll get opportunities to broadcast your ideas on bigger platforms, as Perez Hilton and Amanda Congdon have. (Shortform note: When it comes to getting a book deal, publishers are concerned more with the quality of your content than the engagement it generates.)
The Growth of Influencer Marketing
As social media influencers have gained more, well, influence, there’s been an explosion of influencer marketing, where companies pay influencers to promote their products through endorsements and affiliate programs. The market grew steadily in the late 2010s, then spiked to $9.7 billion in 2020, as the pandemic caused people to spend more time online. In 2021, influencer marketing is projected to reach $13.8 billion.
Millions of influencers worldwide are already trying to get a piece of the multibillion-dollar pie, and more are constantly joining their ranks. While that has led many people to speculate that the influencer market is becoming saturated, others argue that—though it may be more competitive than in years past—there will always be room for new people with engaging content and interesting perspectives. In fact, hundreds of “influencer marketing solution” businesses have cropped up to help brands find the right influencers to promote their products, based on factors such as:
Whether the influencer’s niche and audience match the brand
How often and how consistently they post—An active social media presence should include a daily average of one or two posts each on Facebook and Instagram and about 15 tweets.
How engaged their followers are—Companies want to ensure that an influencer’s follower count isn’t padded with bots, and that followers like, comment, and tag friends in the influencer’s posts.
How engaged the influencer is—Influencers should respond to followers’ comments and actively engage their audience in their posts.
Whether you’re a social media networker or an abstainer, reflect on how you could use Vaynerchuk’s guidance to develop a personal brand that could generate income.
First, choose a niche. List two to three interests that you spend the most time thinking about, talking about, and looking at online.
Pick one of the niches to apply to the rest of the questions in this exercise. (You can repeat the exercise with each of the other interests.) List two to three possible domain names that relate to your niche. Keep in mind that your social media handles should closely match this name.
Between blogging, podcasting, and posting video, which medium would you prefer to use and why?
Brainstorm and list three to five topics you could blog, podcast, or vlog about right away.