I’ve posted before that I am a big fan of
Gary V. I like his common-sense approach to advice. He’s not afraid to give a
straight answer, an answer in terms that are easily understood by the
individual on the receiving end of the advice freely given.
I have also taken issue in the past with
his constant drum beat of the “side hustle”.
The other day it occurred to me. I’ve
reached peak Gary V.
If I had to tie a moment to it, it would be
the day a post on LinkedIn popped into my feed about his shoe launch. A shoe?
Really? How Big Baller Brand can you be?
It’s a fine line between delivering value
and shameless self promotion… and I think the line has been crossed.
Gary are you the second coming of Tony
Robbins or are you the visionary leader of Vayner Media or are you the Vayner
Sports lead? Are your own side hustles diluting your brand? Are they spreading
you too thin?
I don’t want to be misunderstood.
I believe that building your own brand is
one of the most essential parts of the marketing mix today. Social channels
(all of them) are wonderful vehicles to show the best (*cough* or the worst)
version of ourselves and/or our companies. Social media is where we can share
our thoughts with tens of thousands for little to no cost other than the time
required to create the content.
And to give credit where its due, I feel
that Gary has been leading the charge. He and his adherents continue to uncover
and freely share new and best practices in every social channel.
But, I guess it’s true, there is such thing
as “too much of a good thing”. And that’s when my feed is cluttered by the same
person (or company) bombarding me with the same (or similar) information over
and over. Information that was digested and is now feeling recycled or even
more importantly – “spammy”.
Content marketing works. Of that I am sure.
We do it for Sherpa, we do it for clients. And consistency and frequency are
two important components of any marketing campaign.
Our approach is to plan our posts so that
we are putting the appropriate content in the right channel at the right time.
We are careful to try not to duplicate, but to appropriately amplify content
through sharing or sponsoring. We work very hard to be original and add value –
all things we learned from none other than sources like Gary V.
It’s entirely possible that I’ve extracted
maximum value from Gary, but what if there are thousands more like me? We know
that the shoe was the tipping point for me, where Gary started to damage his
brand in my mind. It was like a switch flipped, I went from respect to disdain
in one post. When disdain gains momentum, how far behind is widespread
irrelevance?
You can be sure of one thing, Sherpa will
never have its own shoe.
Thanks for reading!
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