Gary Vaynerchuk: A Millionaire and Engagement Guru

By Sarosh Zuberi

Gary Vaynerchuk is a Belarusian-American entrepreneur who is best known for being a wine critic who grew his families $3 million wine business to $60 million by opening of an online store, which featured his daily wine webcast. Vaynerchuk then left his family’s business in 2009 to start VaynerMedia, a digital advertising agency. By 2016, the company boasted $100 million in gross revenue and employed 600 people. 

He was an early pioneer of daily vlogging, even though he might not have thought so at the time. Vaynerchuk brought those ideas to his YouTube channel where he posts vlog-style content daily with more curated videos being released a few times a month. His channel GaryVee currently boasts 1.6 million subscribers. 

In 2014 he started The #AskGaryVee Show as a near-weekly segment where he takes questions from his viewers via his social media accounts and also invites people to call and speak with him live. Being that most of his following is aspiring entrepreneurs, this is the perfect form of engagement that builds a mentor-like relationship with his audience. 

He understands his buyer persona well and can be seen on shows such as Hot Ones, whereinterviewees eat progressively spicier chicken wings which, very obviously has a younger demographic that overlaps with Vaynerchuk’s. 

Vaynerchuk is a professional of engagement. Vaynerchuk built upon this idea of mentorship and can be seen meeting fans at restaurants for live Q&A sessions that can almost seem like a entrepreneurial rallying cry. This positions Vaynerchuk as the leader of business-minded youth. He is also known to occasionally invite people to his office who write to him asking for advice which, invites more people to reach out to him.

The rest of his social media accounts follow suit in engagement with his Instagram having 4.6 million followers, Twitter with 1.78 million and Facebook with 2.9 million likes. He uses his social accounts to post snippets of his full length videos, motivational quotes and holds live sessions to speak with followers. 

Vaynerchuk’s brand clearly focuses itself as a professional entrepreneurial hub for business-minded people and does it successfully. He hones in on the exact ways to best build a personal relationship with his publics who want Vaynerchuk to be a business coach. He talks about building his brand around what his audience wants and has exemplary talent in doing exactly that.