I really enjoyed Gary Vaynerchuk’s SXSW presentation. He was very honest and human and gave a lot of great points. In light of his new book The Thank You Economy, Gary discussed the humanization of business and what the future has in store.

A key point he made that still resonates with me is this one:

“We’re living in the beginning of the humanization of business.”
He gave an example of a dog: It used to be the case that spot was outside. We were very passive about him. Now, Spot hangs inside. He eats with the family. His food is more gourmet than ours. He sleeps in bed with us, etc. The dog has been humanized. The same is happening to business — we are humanizing brands.

Here’s several points he addresses throughout his discussion:

1. “If content is king, context is god.”

2. More content is being created in 48 hours than the beginning of time through 2003.

3. There’s a constant battle over who can create the greatest content, but most people are full of shit — they talk themselves up, but are  rarely genuinely about the customer.
CASE STUDY: a guy bought a case of wine from him. He found out that the guy was a fan of a certain sports figure, so Gary had his team buy something related to that person.
— Take customer service outside the contest of what you do.
— Hit an emotional center.

4. Customers feel like they know someone when they’ve actually talked to them.

5. A lot of people/businesses are acting like a 19-year-old guy: trying to close too soon without developing the relationship first.

6. There is no such thing as a social media campaign; it’s simply like a one-night stand. You want to retain your customer.
CASE STUDY: Old Spice — their campaign was deemed successful because they got so many followers, but they blew a huge opportunity to engage with them. They didn’t talk to anyone. They were all push, but no FEEL.
— They didn’t build up community the way they should have.

7. We’re being asked to show ROI, but it doesn’t matter: it’s the same as a guy standing on a street counting to see how many cars go by. It’s not an accurate assessment.
— ROI is HUMAN.

8. We’re going to reach a point where the “little guy” is going to be important. He’s going to tweet about running, and the next day, he’ll have running gear being dropped off to his house.

9. We’re talking about things in a way we never have before: 10 years ago, you’d have never called up your buddy and said, “This Tropicana is great, yummers!” NOW WE DO.

10. There’s people that still think social media is a fad. But guess what? People said the internet was a fad. Netflix was a fad. Amazon was a fad. All these businesses are thriving, and putting others out of business.