Chris Do and Eric Siu discuss why established creators like Gary Vaynerchuk are getting fewer views per video despite their massive followings. They explore how platform algorithms have shifted to favor newer creators and how reach no longer scales the way it used to across YouTube, LinkedIn, and TikTok.
When I look at your old— I could be wrong here, but your older videos, I think because YouTube was easier back then, you were getting a lot more views and now it's more competitive right now. When I look at Gary Vee, it's like he was super prolific before. He's not really getting that many views per video anymore.
It's interesting that you mentioned Gary Vee because I think he puts out so much content that by volume it gets reached, right? And because it's Gary Vee. So at a certain point, I think the way the internet works and the world works is if you're successful, success breeds more success. You're Alex Hormozi, you exit out a $100 million company. Well, whatever you say, it's just going to carry that much more weight. And he literally said that on stage. He said, maybe the advice that I give is not different than Suze Homemaker. But because I've done this, you'll probably listen to me more than you will Suze Homemaker, we could literally say the same thing. So he's all about do the work, get the receipts, then talk about it. Work first, then talk second, which is anti-internet culture. Internet culture is just talk all the time, never do anything, and just be famous for talking about the thing that you know nothing about.
Right.
That's typically how it works. Now, I notice on, on Gary's content, the views are terrible because algorithms need to do this thing where they try to bring in as many people to create content as possible. So essentially the old model was if you're popular, you're going to be more popular. If you're Casey Neistat, if you're any one of these old school creators, you're just going to get the traffic. But that is very discouraging for new creators because their content might be better. The algo is going to favor the old school creators with a bigger audience. So essentially what they did was they stripped away your reach. Basically, if you look at your stats, it's going to be like recommends or discovery versus actual subscribers. Subscribers for us is 3rd or 4th down the list of who's actually watching the video. So if you have 2 million subs, it's not going to send it to 2 million people. It'll send it to a small portion of them and that's it. Unless they literally turn the bell on for notifications, they're not going to see it. It's more democratized that way. So now Gary's content has to compete with Susie Homemaker or Bobby Two Pants or whatever. They have to basically compete on the same level. And now here comes the hard part. Is Gary's content that good? Has it progressed? Has it grown? Like, has he said anything new? Currently he's on, I love my mom. Empathy and kindness. Empathy and kindness. I love my mom. And it's like, okay, Gary, what else are we going to hear?
LinkedIn now.
What's that?
LinkedIn as well.
Well, on LinkedIn, I mean, here's the thing.
Well, I'm just saying he says LinkedIn's like another platform.
Yeah, yeah. He, you know, this is the business. If you want to be famous, make 100 predictions, only talk about the 3 that you get right.
Right.
Right. Just let the other ones die. We see this like he ain't talking about Snap anymore. Yeah, it's crazy. Snap's still a viable platform, but nobody I know uses Snap.
Right.
How it's a viable platform, I have no freaking clue.
Right.
Okay. Ain't talking about that. And I'm sure, you know, NFTs, I know we all loved them at one point, but, you know, hey, it's kind of a graveyard out there, right? There's dead bodies everywhere. I'm like, okay, let's see what— so you can make a lot of predictions. So here's the thing. I think if Gary were actually to sit down to write some content and be more intentional in the way he creates, he's going to grow again. But it's all over the place, man. His team is just trying everything left and right and center. His posts don't look the same. They don't sound the same. And they're just trying stuff and he's getting killed on LinkedIn, on YouTube. I don't, I don't know where else he's posting content, but it's not getting that kind of reach. It's kind of, it's almost sad to me, right? Like, I'm rooting for him in a way, but I'm like, I guess there's democracy here, right?
Right.
I guess we are moving towards an egalitarian social media space.
I think that's right. Because like, to your point, yeah, it used to be about how many followers you have. But when you look at Reels or TikToks, for example, now it's just like, if your video is good, it's just going to take off. And so we publish a lot of these clips, right, to my IG, and some will get a couple hundred thousand views, some will get 50,000, some will get like 1,000 or whatever, right? And it's just like, if it's good, it's good. That's right. Yeah.
So you want to do everything you can to make it good so that if a good video goes out, it will catch.
Yep. And I'll share this story too. Like, my YouTube's not that big. It's like 78,000 or so. But I used to get like, you know, 50,000, 100,000, 150,000 views or so. And then I thought I was in YouTube jail, right? I was only getting like 100 views, 200 views or whatever. I posted Alex Hormozi one, 60,000 views. The Leila one's like 40,000 views. And it's like, relatively speaking, it's way more. And it's because I think the YouTube product guy, he's just— Todd, I believe. He's just like, dude, like they're like little saplings, each video. And it's like YouTube will try to make it work if your video is good.
Yeah.
Yeah.
