Gary Vaynerchuk Doesn’t Like Internet Marketers
By: Shane On: January 16th, 2010 —
Here’s how this works:
Step 1: You watch the video below, in which Gary Vaynerchuk says a lot of awesome things, then makes a huge blunder and then says some more awesome things.
Step 2: Watch the next video, below the first one, where I rant about how incredibly wrong Gary was with his statements about Internet marketing.
Step 3: Read the few paragraphs at the end, where I elaborate on some essential points.
GO
Video Interview: Dean Hunt, Ciaran Doyle and Gary Vee
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My Response
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Some Important Points
First of all, in my video it almost comes off as if I’m saying all offline businesses or all big corporate businesses are unethical. That wasn’t my intention, of course.
My point is simply that there are unethical businesses and ethical businesses, online as well as off. Likewise, there “good” marketing and marketing that “just isn’t right” as Gary puts it. And this is also true online as well as offline.
Note that I’m not saying all Internet marketing is good and holy. There’s a lot of spammy and scammy marketing going on, online. And unfortunately, the spammiest marketers are usually the most prevalent, the ones you encounter most often and the ones that you get annoyed by the most frequently.
Internet marketing as a whole is no better and no worse than non-Internet marketing. However, a large portion of online marketing consists of individuals or small groups that are very busy producing great value for free and building lasting relationships with relatively small groups of customers. And if more people get involved in this type of marketing and the paradigm shifts ever further in that direction, then that’s clearly a blessing for everyone involved.
At least, that’s my take on this. What do you think?
Step 4: Tell me what you think in the comments below.
Cheers,
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Interesting videos! I actually met Gary last year around this time. He was speaking at Affiliate Summit West and we took a cab together to the airport. I had no idea who he was at the time until after. Anyways, I agree with both of you. I’ve worked in the cpa space for a few years and most of the advertisements are scams. Id say 80% of them except for some lead gens. I do also agree with you that advertising as a whole offline and online can be misleading and or scammy. The internet is big enough and will always have room for everyone. Sometimes certain products have a short shelf life but I think internet marketers will be around for as long as the internet is and there will also be a lot of money made.
Thanks for your comment, Jason!
Wow, 80% is more than I expected, to be hones (haven’t done any CPA myself, yet).
I agree that IM isn’t going anywhere and if enough of us push in the right direction, the Internet can completely change what marketing (and doing business) means. And in that sense, I agree with Gary: Get out of the scammy and hypey stuff, because it’s (hopefully) not going to last.
Cheers,
Shane
Hi Shane
I just tweeted out this post to the Twitter cocktail party.
If Gary sees your post he’ll almost definitely reply with something highly constructive – he’s a brilliant social communicator – one of the best in the world.
Jonathan
Hi Jonathan,
Thanks for the retweet! Yes, I don’t doubt Gary would have more interesting things to say about this. I’d love to discuss this subject with him and if I can, I’ll try to make that happen, somehow.
Cheers,
Shane
I see the points you are trying to raise and I don’t know if that was the exact market Gary was targeting. I think if you can safely and proudly tell people anywhere what you are doing then you don’t have anything to worry about. I think he was targeting the IM that are shilling some crappy soda for 1000x what it is worth. If you are building a legit business and brand I don’t thing there is any problem with that on or offline. Nice post.
Hi Josh,
Thanks for your comment!
I agree, in a sense, Gary and I are talking about two different things, here. And that’s kind of the point, really. Maybe I’m being a bit too positive about IM as a whole, looking mainly at the good bits and he’s being too negative, looking mainly at all the scams and dishonesty.
I personally hope that with time, we’ll see more and more of the good stuff and as I stated in the video, I believe that marketing online has already begun changing what marketing and promoting products means – in a good way. But then, there’s also forced continuity scams and rubbish Acai berry pills…
Cheers,
Shane
Shane.
I agree with your commentary, however I am learning that sometimes if you can’t beat them you need to join them. I am working towards not calling myself an Internet marketer and the longer. I now prefer the term marketer alone but then sometimes I am a product creator or producer.
It’s difficult when the landscape changes so much. Marketing today is not what it was 20 years ago. So do traditional titles even still stick?
The problem is that most Internet marketers ARE scammers. They make those of us who do things properly look bad. We either need to change the title we assign to ourselves, or find a way to build an association that supports a standards and best practices policy.
Brad, thanks for your input.
I think changing the label or actively doing something about the label is a really good idea. In fact, I think just using the term “marketer” rather than “Internet marketer” is very clever and also very appropriate. After all, marketing without involving the Internet in one way or another is almost unthinkable nowadays and online and offline marketing have been merging for a long time.
An added perk may be that you don’t get the typical “what the hell is that?” response when people ask you what you do for a living, if you just say: I work in marketing.