Gary Vee's Social Media Marketing Strategy for 2025

PLUS: TikTok Survival Playbook For Creators

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Startup Spells đŸȘ„
January 24, 2025

Gary Vee's Social Media Marketing Strategy for 2025

Social media isn’t just a trend—it’s the backbone of modern marketing. Yet many businesses still treat it like a side project.

Gary Vaynerchuk, a seasoned entrepreneur known for his blunt advice, shares a stark warning: Google Search will lose its grip on consumer behavior within the next 48 to 66 months.

The future belongs to organic social media execution, and businesses that adapt will thrive.

Social Media’s New Rules: Interest Beats Followers

Why Follower Counts No Longer Matter

In the early days, social media success relied on amassing followers and leveraging them for reach. You had to get as many followers as possible, and when you posted, a percentage of them would see your stuff. This was impractical for many businesses, especially regional ones.

“Getting 100,000 followers when you’re in Dayton, Ohio, and only 17 of them are local doesn’t help your business.”

~ Gary Vee

A million followers won’t pay your bills if they’re not in your zip code.

Interest-Based Algorithms: Algorithms Now Work for You

But the game has changed. Platforms like TikTok have shifted to interest-based algorithms. This means users now see content aligned with their preferences rather than just from accounts they follow.

Think of it this way: If you’re a yoga instructor, your videos could reach someone in Tokyo who’s searching for “morning stretches”—even if they’ve never heard of you.

"What Tumblr understood in 2008 was that your interests are stickier than your social connections. For example, someone who loves the New York Jets since 1982 will always engage with Jets-related content, even if their friends change. Your aunt posting about her pet pig was not necessarily the coolest thing you could see in your feed. What you’re interested in tends to be stickier and could follow you."

~ Gary Vee

Building a Social Media Strategy That Actually Works

Customize Content for Each Platform’s “Vibe”

Every social platform has its own culture. What works on LinkedIn might flop on TikTok.

For example, "Are you very busy? You’re always traveling for work." is a good opening sentence on LinkedIn. That is less of a good opening sentence on TikTok.

The Power of Video

Gary’s rule: 1–2 videos/photos daily on all platforms (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn). No exceptions. Videos should either teach or inform.

Daily posting ensures visibility when customers are in the market for services. We don’t know the day someone is going to be in-market, which is why car companies market every day.

Content ideas can come from observing others in the industry. Go to YouTube and Instagram and search all the terms in your industry and watch every video that has ever been posted. Then replicate them.

“Make a video titled, ‘A video so you don’t have to hire me.’ I’m sure a lot of you know that a lot of human beings call you to help them when it’s literally the dumbest stuff of all time. They’re struggling with literally a switch, literally a wire, literally nothing but they don’t know how to do it.”

~ Gary Vee

For example, a plumber could post a video teaching homeowners how to fix a leaky faucet. This positions the plumber as an expert, making customers more likely to call when they need help.

Hyper-Local Ads: Small Budget, Big Impact

Targeting neighbors is cheaper and more effective than broad campaigns. For example:

  • A dentist in Miami could run Instagram ads promoting teeth whitening to users within 10 miles.

  • A bookstore in Portland might use Facebook ads to highlight new arrivals to local book clubs.

Local Ads = Nuclear Impact

For example, Gary Vee ran Facebook ads for his father’s liquor store in a small town. They reached almost every resident multiple times. He spent $1,000 in a town with 10,000 residents, and almost everyone saw the ad three or four times. This frequency builds brand recognition and familiarity, making your business the first choice when needs arise.

2 Unusual Tactics That Create Superfans

1. Turn Small Sales Into Big Opportunities

After a customer bought a $100 wine case, Gary’s team dug into his Twitter profile, discovered his love for the Chicago Bears, and mailed him a signed jersey.

The result? A $6,000 order from the customer’s friend.

Spend 10 minutes researching a customer’s social profiles. A personalized gift or message can turn a one-time buyer into a lifelong advocate.

2. The Thank You Economy: Comment Like a Neighbor

Engaging with local communities by commenting on Instagram posts builds goodwill without direct pitches. Using Instagram’s search feature to find local posts and engage with them increases visibility and builds connections.

“Type in the name of your town
 It will show you pictures that were posted in your town. These are people that you could do business with. You could look at all those pictures and, from your business account on Instagram, reply like a gracious, normal, kind neighbor: ‘Your dog is cute. Your lawn looks great.’”

~ Gary Vee

Gary emphasizes: “No selling. Just be the friendly face everyone recognizes. When they need your services, you’ll be top of mind.”

Avoid These Deadly Mistakes

Reliance on Google search poses risks as AI transforms user behavior. Voice assistants and AI tools like ChatGPT are answering questions instantly. Why click a Google ad when Siri can recite pizza places nearby.

Google search is fundamentally dead within the next 7 years. Very hard to click a Google ad when you don’t even go to Google in the first place.

Gary warns: “If your strategy relies on Google Ads, you’re building on sinking sand.”

Retreating to Outdated Tactics When Panic Hits

Businesses often revert to old strategies when new ones don’t yield immediate results. Gary says, “Direct mail is less effective than social media advertising. When one weekend doesn’t go well, people want to go back to direct mail
 because it worked in 1984.” Yet, many companies panic and fall back on outdated methods.

“When you go into defense mode, you go backwards. Your brain thinks, ‘Well, this worked in 1984,’”

~ Gary Vee

Gary’s father wanted to return to direct mail after one bad weekend, despite its poor track record. So they did try using direct mail 80 times in the last 2 years, and they wasted money. In contrast, Facebook ads consistently delivered better results.

Gary says, “Don’t be in the middle. Go old school with the thank you economy or go new school with social media.”

Gary’s message emphasized social media isn’t optional — it’s survival.

Gary’s ultimatum: “If you don’t attack social in the next 5 years, you’ll pay the consequences.”

Commit to social media consistently for a year. It’s like working out. The first couple of weeks are hard, but if you keep going, you’ll see results.

Top Tweets of the day

1/

HubSpot SEO is tanking as it ranked for unrelated terms like "famous quotes", "business name ideas" and other unrelated stuff for their CRM business.

SEO isn't dead, its shifting. Social Search and AIO is the new SEO.

HubSpot owns a bunch of newsletters and podcasts so it is unaffected by this but its a scary trend.

2/

I love to use AI to ELI5 me things that I don't know.

3/

Once you have enough data, you can do data analysis on it to plot interesting graphs using ChatGPT Code Interpreter.

Patterns will emerge.

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