Last week, I had the honor to interview social media superstar, Gary Vaynerchuk. A man who really needs no introduction, he’s one of the most influential internet celebrities out there with over 800,000 followers on Twitter!

He’s also the star behind Wine Library TV, an online video blog about wine that attracts over 90,000 views a day, as well as the author of the forthcoming book, Crush It: Why Now is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion.

While the interview was pretty short, Gary was able to deliver some one-line golden nuggets (which he’s known for). So check it out

You can either listen to the audio version below or read the transcript. Enjoy

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(some mild profanity)

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Stanley: Gary, start off by telling us a bit about yourself. Have you always been invovled with entrepreneurship/business/marketing from a young age?

Gary: Absolutely. At the end of the day, it’s a DNA play, right? You are who you are. I was selling lemonade in seven different lemonade-stand locations before I understood what business was. I was always selling baseball cards and other things of that nature.

So I’ve been on this kick from day one. It’s who I am, it’s in my blood. I’m a story teller. I love to tell stories about brands. I love to tell stories, period. I like painting pictures through the words, and that’s what I do.

Stanley: Do you think entrepreneurship is in the blood?

Gary: I do in a lot of ways. I definitely feel that people are born with some level of entrepreneurial skills, some more than others. For me, it’s definitely a big part of who I am and part of the way I interact and view the world.

Stanley: How did you first get involved with your father’s business with Wine Library?

Gary: He dragged my ass to the store! I had no choice! I was made to work at the store, and that was fine. I didn’t love it at first, I cried a lot. But at the end of the day it was what it was and I started getting passionate about wine. So even though it started off a little rough, because I wanted to run my baseball card business instead, it definitely ended up being a good thing.

Stanley: What did you initially do at Wine Library before the whole Internet thing?

Gary: I basically stocked shelves, then eventually became a cashier. Then I made signs and finally started selling wine on the floor to every customer that walked in, so I was a sales person.

Stanley: What was the experience like and how do you think it would eventually help you when you came to create Wine Library TV and get involved with e-commerce and social media?

Gary: Retail is hard—12 to 15 hours a day, seven days a week. This helped made all of this work much easier. It made me tougher and created a thick skin for business. It’s given me a work ethic and is definitely a foundation of my skill.

Stanley: How did you first get involved with e-commerce online?

Gary: I was in my friend’s dorm room, sophomore year of college. They dialed up the Internet [makes sounds of a dial-up connection] and the next thing I know is I see this shit. In an hour, I’m trying to sell baseball cards while all of my friends were trying to hook up with girls on the Internet.

Once again, entrepreneur glasses, right? You see something and you view it as a business. That’s what I did, it’s part of who I am, it’s how I roll, and it’s what I ended up doing. Immediately, I started pitching my dad for a year to build WineLibrary.com as a retail Internet website.

Stanley: What was the site like in its early stages?

Gary: A piece of shit. It was classic HTML garbage. I couldn’t ship yet to different states, so it was more informational. Slowly, but surely, we started getting into e-commerce and 1999 was when we started really pushing the envelope.

Stanley: Before there was social media, what marketing and promotional strategies did you use to help grow the business?

Gary: Traditional media—newspapers, magazines, radio—all of the things that have people’s attention. Now that’s all changed and all the eyeballs are heading in one direction, and that platform is the Internet, whether it’s mobile, streaming, video or written words. It’s the playing platform for the brand building business.

Stanley: How did you first get into social media?

Gary: I feel like, in a lot of ways, YouTube and Flickr were two of the early sites that made me realize how people communicated. In 2002-03, I started to see that blogging was very fascinating. I just started seeing different opportunities and things going on.

Obviously, for myself, Twitter in late 2006 was a huge opportunity. Facebook was out and I knew about it, but it was more for college kids and I didn’t want to be the creepy old guy selling wine. I feel like probably in 2004-05 I started dabbling with Flickr/MySpace and things of that nature.

Stanley: Did that prompt you to start your video blog, Wine Library TV?

Gary: My developer started watching ZeFrank, the show, and that was a big early video blog hit and I realized that it was really cool. I thought what he was doing was really neat and it gave me the idea to do a wine version with my own style.

Stanley: How did you start? Did you just get a camera and start talking?

Gary: Yes. That’s basically it. I just knew that it was what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to be involved in the trenches, I wanted to create engagement and that’s what I did.

Stanley: What do you think was the key that got Wine Library TV to take off and go viral?

Gary: I think it was good content and a massive amount of market hustle on the back end. That combo is the combo for success. That’s what I did.

Stanley: Content is king, but sooner or later, no matter how much effort you put into creating the content, there’s got to be some promotion to get it out. What was your promotion?

Gary: I always say content is king and marketing is the queen, and she runs the household. My plan was to just get in the trenches, answer every e-mail, live in forums, leave blog posts. One step at a time. It’s a marathon, it’s not a sprint. That was it.

Stanley: What are some obstacles you faced when you first got started with the video blog?

Gary: I have no idea. It’s not how my brain works. I’m sure there were plenty. Maybe the wine industry wasn’t ready for that kind of style, but I just kept plugging along and hustling and never really looked back.

I didn’t pay attention to the obstacles. I just kept my eye on the prize and that was it. I’m building something here, a lot of people won’t get it, that’s fine. I’m very hungry to succeed, build a viewership, a culture, a movement. That’s what I try to do.

Stanley: You talked about hustle and I’ve heard you mention that before in your keynote speeches etc but what do you really mean when you say “hustle”?

Gary: I mean that most people underestimate work and I think that’s a huge mistake. It blows me away that people don’t realize how much of the overall success is based on working extremely hard. That, to me, is a huge missed opportunity for a lot of people and I continue to try to talk about it, to open up people’s minds to: “It’s not going to happen in one day. You’re going to have to work really hard and that’s the bottom line.”

Stanley: I think it was Diana Rankin who once said, “It takes 20 years of hard work to become an overnight success.” Would you agree with that?

Gary: I think there’s a lot of truth to those kinds of statements. On some level, it matters on your skill set, but at the end of the day, absolutely.

Stanley: Would you say that the first time being on the Conan O’Brien show was a tipping point for your business?

Gary: I think it definitely didn’t hurt. It built a lot of street cred on the Internet for me. It was almost what happened on the Net that day and the next day that was maybe more important. Because there were so many link backs, so many people watched it and passed it on. That kind of stuff.

Stanley: How did you get on the show in the first place?

Gary: They cold emailed me. They said, “We’re the Conan producers. We’d like to have you on. Are you interested?” I said, “No.” Just kidding! I said, “Absolutely!” and that was it.

Stanley: Do you think traditional, mainstream media is better or do you prefer social media? Which one do you think is more effective?

Gary: Whichever one gets you more eyeballs. I think new media is more cost effective than traditional media, but there are still a lot of eyeballs watching television and that has value. At the end of the day, it’s always going to be eyeballs. We’re all in the eyeball business, and I continue to try to be in places where there are eyeballs and I can get some work.

Stanley: Which would you prefer: Getting on the front page of, let’s say, The New York Times or the front page of Digg or StumbleUpon?

Gary: Probably The New York Times. I used to say Digg or StumbleUpon but the fact of the matter is the traffic is not necessarily relevant or sticky. Maybe StumbleUpon more than Digg, even—and I love Kevin Rose and I love Digg—but my experience has been that The New York Times has such brand equity that it leads to other opportunities.

Stanley: What do you mean by brand equity?

Gary: What I mean by that is, to me, brand is everything, like every single person’s brand, every single consumer products brand. Everything you’re protecting and everything you’re trying to build is “the” brand. Even though The New York Times is not a good business anymore, the brand still has a lot of power. So an endorsement on the front page still means something, even though the business itself is far less exciting than, say, the opportunities that StumbleUpon has in front of it.

Stanley: How instrumental do you think Wine Library TV has been to help grow Wine Library into a $60 million business?

Gary: It’s been a huge factor, especially because, as I phased out of day-to-day retail with Wine Library, it’s become more and more important that the social media aspects have picked up the slack. Before, I was the driving force to the business. Now it’s social media itself, and the show itself. It’s made me scale.

Stanley: Do you see Wine Library TV as a marketing tool to help sell wine or to enhance the brand. Or is it both?

Gary: It was strictly built for one reason: For me to be able to build brand equity that would lead to other entrepreneurial opportunities. It was never about selling more wine. It was always about changing the culture of wine, creating good content and discussion in an industry that needs it.

Stanley: What was the biggest mistake you’ve made and what did you learn from it?

Gary: I don’t know. There’s something inside me that doesn’t allow the ability to really digest negativity or what I’ve done wrong. I’m sure I’ve done a million things wrong. I don’t really learn necessarily from doing things wrong, or maybe I do and I just don’t dwell on that, even to a point of being aware of it. That’s it. I don’t even know what else to say. It’s the way I’m built; I just don’t know anything different.

Stanley: You have about 700,000 followers on Twitter. What do you think is the right way to interact and engage with your followers?

Gary: I think one of the important things is to be authentic, whatever that means. I use Twitter quite a bit as a messaging tool to people about what I’m doing, how I’m doing it—different things like that. I do a lot of my interaction on email and instant messenger and DM.

I don’t publicly add people a whole lot. Other people do. I just think it’s different for everybody. I think you should work at the rate at which you’re comfortable, instead of the way I do just because I have a lot of followers.

Stanley: Do you think listening is important?

Gary: Listening is the whole game—that’s business. It’s all about listening and then giving. Nothing else matters. Your point of view is irrelevant. You need to have the pulse of society and what they want, and then you have to basically execute what they’re looking for.

Stanley: Do you ever monitor your brand by typing your own name on Google or Twitter search?

Gary: Every single day! It’s absolutely what I do. It’s the game.

Stanley: Wouldn’t some people call that egoistic or narcissistic?

Gary: I’m sure, at some level. I just think it’s more about paying attention to and caring about what other people are saying. To me, it just comes down to: If you’re listening, you have the ability to execute and give people what they want.

I think way too many people don’t listen, and if they think I’m looking up my name for vanity, they’re just not aware of what’s actually going on here.

Stanley: Do you think social media tools have been effective for corporate brands, like Dell? Do you think they’re using Twitter correctly?

Gary: They’ve sold $2 million worth of stuff, right? The funny thing, and I think it’s very fascinating is that I don’t understand, in any shape or form, Stanley, how people don’t understand that the game is changing. Platforms and media consumption have fundamentally changed and eyeballs are shifting. Everything has changed.

When television fall in the next three years, everybody will understand. It’s just laughable to me to even think that people would debate that social media is not good for everybody, from the lowest point of the individual to the highest point of the biggest company in the world.

Stanley: Do you ever plan on taking Wine Library TV to mainstream media?

Gary: It’s conceivable, but it’s going to have to be a really, really sweet deal and I’m not sure if anybody is ready to go there.

Stanley: What trends do you see in social media in the future?

Gary: More transparency, more interaction, more connection between users.

Stanley: What advice do you have for young entrepreneurs who are getting started in business, Internet marketing and social media?

Gary: Passion! It’s all about passion. Find the stuff you like the most and execute.

Stanley: Speaking of passion, why don’t you tell us about your upcoming book, Crush It?

Gary: I basically wrote, in my opinion, the blueprint of how to go about finding your passion, thinking about why your passion could be monetized, and the details of how to do it. I think I looked it at a very high level and I brought it to the very low level.

So I was at 50,000 feet swirling in the air and then ground level. I think that’s the important thing. Never be caught in the middle – never. I think you’ve got to look at it from the biggest level and then find out how to do it and execute in the trenches.

Stanley: I’ve got a question from Twitter: “What would you do instead of online video were to vanish or be banned today?”

Gary: I would be doing exactly what I’m doing right now, which is building VaynerMedia, building out other Internet properties. I’d leverage the written word if that communication was available. I would just adjust.

At the end of the day, I’m not emotional about anything. It comes down to one thing: Whatever the platform it is that’s executed and whatever is working, I’m going to figure out how to use it.

Stanley: A new platform which is really hot right now is mobile. Do you plan on going mobile any time soon, like with an iPhone application?

Gary: It’s the new playing field – the end. I’ve got to be a part of it and we’re looking at it very heavily. We’ve been slow to the game. I had an iPhone app that’s 90% done. I bullshitted and I haven’t executed. I deserve to lose if I do lose, but we’re looking at it very heavily.

Stanley: What are some future projects you have with regards to going mobile?

Gary: Corkd.com is my social wine network. We’re looking at mobile and we continue to view every single thing that’s going on in the world as a mobile play. Mobile has to be part of every strategy. If it’s not, it’s not a basic, smart decision, in my opinion. Mobile is a must – a requirement.

Stanley: You’re obviously a very passionate and confident person. Where do you get the confidence that one day, all of this will pay off? What drives you to succeed?

Gary: I come from a humble beginning as an immigrant. I’ve got a great family life, amazing parents. I’m massively competitive DNA-wise. I want to achieve big things. I feel a huge sense of responsibility for all the luckiness I have.

Stanley: Gary, thank you very much for taking the time out to do this interview. Do you have any final comments or let people know where they can find you online?

Gary: My final comment is I appreciate your hustle to get me on this interview, Stanley, and I wish you nothing but the best.

Stanley: Where can people find you?

Gary: No I’m good. I’m sure they can find it. I’m promoting myself plenty. I’m sure you’ll link it up and mention it. The bottom line is if I’m putting out good shit, they’ll find me and that’s what I’m focused on.

Stanley: I also want to plug your book Crush It: Why Now is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion. When is that coming out?

Gary: October 13, 2009.

Stanley: All right. People can preorder the book on Amazon or Barnes & Noble, I believe?

Gary: IndieBound, lots of different places, absolutely.

Stanley: Thanks again, Gary, for taking the time to do this interview. We really appreciate it.

Gary: Stay well.

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You can check out Gary’s blog over at http://www.garyvaynerchuk.com and follow him on Twitter @garyvee

This is a guest post by Christy Taylor.

Everyone has something they know about and something they can help others understand. What many people don’t know is that what they know can always be made into an article that others can use.

An article doesn’t have to be about something big, but it should be something that you care about and that you can express how to do or how to feel. There are probably billions of articles on the Internet with different people’s perspectives, ideas and thoughts. All you have to do is write something that is entertaining and eye catching.

Most articles that work well on the Internet are between 400 and 600 words. They usually have headlines and bullet points to catch the eye as readers pass through. Good information will be passed along to others and before you know it, your website traffic picks up.

The good news is that you don’t have to write all of these articles. In fact, there are several different ways to do this and they are worth the investing of a few dollars. There are article directories and software programs that will do the work for you after you write the first article.

The way the system works is that people read your article and then link to your website for more information. This is called back linking when it is in an article directory and the traffic to your website grows.

The nice thing about article writing is the more you write, the more you have to send out to the directories and the more people can read about you. Finding a niche market that people will read can send you more customers in a very short time.

What People Read

This is where you go on a kind of scavenger hunt because you can find many items that interest you. Look at television, read the news feeds online and read any news that interests you. If it is fascinating to you, chances are people are talking about it. Look for information about the topics you enjoy and write about them. This will generate more creativity, and you will gain more ideas for your own articles.

Chat rooms and message boards also have a lot of information about what people are taking about, and they can be used for topics that are the most current. While you are there, look for questions that people are asking.

Creating articles for your website will take some time, but it is worth the investment to get because over time you won’t have to do as much work in this area. More and more people are coming to websites for their content that they can use.

Christy Taylor, author, is the owner of Virtual Business Connections, an Internet Marketing/SEO/Professional Copywriting firm. For more information on how to generate traffic to your website, visit http://www.VirtualBusinessConnections.com

With exams (SATs) and courseworks coming up, I will have to take a short break from blogging (and my business) in the next two months. As much as I love blogging and working on my business, I have to learn to prioritize things in order to meet my goals. Like they say, “Don’t spread yourself too thin.” The same applies to business.

But if anybody is interested in taking over by writing a couple of guest posts (you may include up to three links back to your website) then feel free to email me at stanley@stanleytang.com, letting me know your topics of interest and how many posts you can contribute. The topic can be anything related to the niche – internet marketing, entrepreneurship, social media etc.

Like I said, you may promote your blog or website in the bylines – but NO affiliate links. So basically you are getting exposure to over 10,000 visits per month for an extended period of time.

Don’t worry. I won’t be completely gone. I will still try my best to provide you guys with awesome stuff through twitter – http://www.twitter.com/stanleytang every now and then. Take care.

Found this awesome slideshow about social media marketing:

Should stir you with some inspirations for web 2.0 start-ups

There are many essential marketing tools out there which can help you with your online business. Here are my top 7:

1. Wordtracker

Wordtracker helps you to search all the phrases that consist of the certain keyword picked by you. It will make your job easier as you will be able to figure out the number of searches occurring in any of the search engines. This will save a lot of your time and money, as you can know whether your idea is saleable or not. You can also get different ideas for your sites, using Wordtracker. Wordtracker can be bought according to your need on daily basis or for the whole year. If you can use Wordtracker properly then you know you can do great business online with no losses at all.

2. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is free to use and gives you the correct information about custom reporting, segmentation, motion charts and others. An easy way to polish your marketing skills can be. It is important that you use a high quality-tracking program that will help you achieve great performance.

3. Crazy Egg Heat Maps

Crazy Egg Heat Maps are essential tools to know where your visitors are clicking. It tells you if certain parts f your website attracts consumers or not. If you find that certain parts are never visited then you know where to draw the line and develop which parts further. It can help you in placing different headers, search and content on your pages. You get quick information about what is going on in your website.

4. 7Search Keyword Suggestion Tool

7Search Keyword Suggestion Tool consists of keyword advertising price research tool and a search frequency research tool. You can get this tool for keyword research and high paying advertisement clicks when it comes to pay-per-click marketing.

5. Digital Point Keyword Tracker

DP Keyword Tracker is an important tool that lets you know whether you have correctly changed your SEO or have hampered your rankings. It will track down your rankings daily and specify the changes.

6. Keyword Discovery – Keyword Research Tool

It is always important to research your keywords correctly. Keyword Discovery Tool exactly helps you research the best keywords, which helps you profit in your business. In order to increase search engine traffic it is important that you stress on certain keywords that will do the trick. This tool will be beneficial as it will help you research keywords and successfully increase traffic.

7. Backlink Watch Backlink Monitor

Backlink Watch is a helpful tool in providing you with a Backlink analysis for free in great detail. It might be a bit slow but what result it guarantees is worth the wait.

Yesterday, internet super affiliate Ewen Chia launched his latest print book, How I Made My First Million on the Internet and How You Can Too!: The Complete Insider’s Guide to Making Millions with Your Internet Business.

He kindly sent me a review copy and I took a quick look. And honestly, I was blown away. It’s literally an step-by-step blueprint of his affiliate marketing system that almost anybody can follow. Although it might not be as “insider” as you may think, it’s definitely worth the $13 from Amazon.

With this amount of incredible content in his book on top of Ewen’s incredible marketing skills, it was no surprise to see the book become an instant best-seller and hit #1 on the Overall Best-Seller’s List on Amazon in as little as 12 hours!

But what does it got to do with me? Well, here’s the interesting thing:

See that section where it says “Frequently Bought Together”? That little blue cover right there is my book – eMillions: Behind-The-Scenes Stories of 14 Successful Internet Millionaires! It got actually recommended by Amazon themselves! Now just imagined the thousands of people who went to that page on the day (it takes hundreds of sales to hit and maintain the #1 spot)… I’m pretty sure quite a few are going to take on that offer from Amazon (in fact, it says 6% of the people visiting that page end up buying my book)

Within just 24 hours, my book ranking has soared from 400,000 to 743 (hitting the #1 spot in the Home-Based Business Category)… all with ZERO effort and promotion on my part! (A typical campaign like this would cost anywhere from $1,000 up to $10,000! – unless of course you’re using word-of-mouth marketing)

This is the power of piggyback marketing

Remember to get a copy of my book, eMillions, over at Amazon (and get tons of cool bonuses):

http://www.emillionsbook.com

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post explaining how I brought in 184 unique visitors to my blog… just with a simple trackback that took me 2 seconds.

Like any good scientist marketer, I repeat my experiments to ensure accuracy and precision in my results. So the other day, I wrote a blog post called Web 2.0 Is Dying… Or Is It and linked it to the post on TechCrunch (which then got displayed on the trackback list).

72 hours later…

It is – at least according to Google Trends. Here’s the latest screenshot I took just minutes ago:

From the graph, you can clearly see there’s been a gradual decrease in interest over the past 12 months, with volume declined by almost 40%. TechCrunch takes a closer look at those graphs.

Personally, I’ve always thought “web 2.0″ was just a marketing phrase coined and places like the media and consulting firms just hyped it up (for the Youtube and Facebook acquisition news) in order to generate buzz and… make money. Really, it means nothing more than the evolution of the internet into a two-way communication medium that connects people together.

So is web 2.0 dying? Or is it just the term “web 2.0″ that have died?

Leave your views in the comments section

This guest post is written by Josh Lam.

Even though Internet has covered all areas of human life, a young Internet entrepreneur might feel it a bit tough to things started. Internet has helped to broaden their horizons and explore new heights in business development. The dramatic impacts have been instrumental in infusing the spirit among young generations as it made them realize that the opportunities have got no limits and a great career is there for the taking.

Having said all these, creative actions are the way to success, to the say the least. The preliminary step is to study about existing market that you are interested in and the next step essentially deals with designing of a proposed market of yours. Since the pool of opportunities might be confusing, the areas of your interests should be given supreme importance. After the selection of a specific area is done, a detailed study and analysis of the same had to be made. This knowledge would remain to be the best capital investment of yours in building up a name and reputation as a young internet entrepreneur.

Marketing area is one of the most demanded and attractive section in internet marketing and this is the arena in which a young internet entrepreneur can shuffle his cards. He can sell his own product or he can go with the commissioning stuff. Marketing and selling of their own products would take a lot out of a young internet entrepreneur and would be highly challenging. To accomplish the same, the business man should have his own products to sell. He should be well versed with marketing terminologies, tips and tricks prevailing in this arena. Apart from that, he should have a production section as well as a shipping office. It is something that cannot be accomplished within a short span of time and with little experience in the respective section. In, fact there are young entrepreneurs who do these activities, and confident people can never look backwards.

The other area where young internet entrepreneurs can excel is the area of affiliate marketing. In affiliate marketing, the marketers do not need to have a production section or shipping office. He does not even need to master the tough marketing strategies. Here, the marketer is not selling his own products. Instead he sells another party’s products. Simply speaking, the internet marketer promotes other’s products through their web sites.

Numerous affiliate marketing opportunities are there in the internet these days, and majority of them are genuine. Affiliate marketing is something that can very well be tried by young internet entrepreneurs as the studies reveal that the success rate is very high. Having said that, it should not be taken for granted that it does not require skill and knowledge. It does require good skill and sufficient knowledge. Terminologies do s and don’t s in affiliate marketing should be very well investigated by the beginner. For the products you promote, you will be getting a commission for that. It should be taken into account that some companies offer about 75 percent of the price of the products as commission that the affiliate marketer sell.

1. Be remarkable – somebody worth making a remark about
2. Become a resource to others
3. Have your own unique personality
4. Be vocal and opinionated within the communtiy
5. Don’t continuously push the envelope by flooding them with requests
6. Invest time into social media
7. Produce and share content that your audience will love
8. Monitor what’s being shared about you
9. Become a real member of the community
10. Ask questions
11. Answer questions
12. Provide value to the community
13. Be controversial
14. Don’t be another “me-too”
15. Automate carefully – it’s about people not robots
16. Don’t be an asshole
17. Make it easy for people to share and bookmark your content
18. Listen to the community
19. Make at least one new connection every day
20. Engage yourself in conversations
21. Become the conversation
22. You’re there to make relationships, not hard selling
23. Take time to focus on building a loyal following
24. Give, Give, GIVE!
25. Treat social media like a cocktail party
26. Be supportive
27. Syndicate your content across all social media platforms
28. Encourage others to syndicate your content onto their sites
29. Fully research the community to understand your market
30. Be fun
31. Get to know the unwritten laws of the community
32. Create an attractive, unique and professional profile
33. Use a cool avatar/picture
34. Use the same avatar for each social media service
35. Don’t be a keyboard gangsta (i.e. trash talk all day)
36. Know what your followers/friends want and give it to them
37. Form reciprocal arrangements with others
38. Monitor your noise level
39. Never cheat the system
40. Help others unconditionally
41. Be yourself