In this episode, I unpack the lessons from “Day Trading Attention” by Gary Vaynerchuk.
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Full Transcript:
The thesis of day trading attention is simple. Figure out where underpriced attention is and learn how to effectively storytell in those places. But as I always say, you can’t just read about doing pushups. Execution is the game and that’s the hard part. Brands, business and influencers often find it difficult to keep up with all the platform changes happening constantly and many of them ask me how to stay on top of it all. My honest answer, you’ve just got to set aside the time and put in the work. With the tick-tock-ification of social media, the opportunities today are much greater than 10 years ago, but so is the effort required.
So I’m Mickey Mellen, this is Stacking Knowledge, and that was a snippet from Gary Vaynerchuk’s Day Trading Attention. This is a fantastic book, and when I tell folks about it, I tell them put it at the top of your list and read it right away. Not that it’s the best book out there, I mean it’s very good, we’re covering it here, you certainly should read it, but that it’s super tactical, so it’s gonna fade quickly. Most of the other books I cover in here are more high level, they’re gonna last, if you read it now, read it in five years, they’re good lessons for life, lessons for business. This is super tactical about where social media is today, why you should attack it, and specific things to do on different platforms.
I will say to you as well, if you’re gonna read this book, read it very soon, because in a couple years this won’t be as helpful. But for now, it is solid gold. So let’s kind of dig into it. I start talking about day trading attention. The idea, I actually had a book club on this. had a guy show up that was looking for info about day trading, like day trading stocks. And the idea here is attention shifts from consumers different places at different times. And you should be trading, switching one social platform for another, one technique for another, shifting around to where the attention is. Day trade attention, that’s the idea there.
He starts at the intro about day trading attention and why it matters. He kind of gives that analogy right off the top there. says, quote, just as a day trader constantly studies financial markets to keep a pulse on what’s happening, you must constantly study what people are paying attention to, the cost associated with capturing that attention, and how it shifts by the day. A few more things he said in the intro here. says, attention is the game. More specifically, underpriced attention is the opportunity. And he’ll talk a lot about that, attention is where it’s at. That’s great. Underpriced attention is where it’s great. ⁓
Specific platforms really appreciate video more, certain kinds of content where you can get more than your fair share if you do the right kind of content for them. So we talk about that a good bit. He says, being said, underpriced attention isn’t about what advertising medium is the cheapest. It’s about whether you can get a low cost relative to the amount of actual attention you get. And he also says social media is just an empty vessel. You only get out of it what you put into it. Without putting in the work to understand these platforms and the psychology of the people using them, you’re just creating a bunch of content that no one will ever see.
So he also kind of the intro area gets into the new social media world. He says, but you’d be surprised how often people subconsciously buy things because the brand or business means something to them. In other words, they decide that a certain product or service is more relevant to their needs or to who they are. That is the power of brand at work. Relevance is about creating and distributing content that people find meaningful, whether that’s potential customers, clients, or other individuals who matter to you. When your business is more relevant, more people consider buying, which then leads to higher sales numbers. So.
He kind of digs in to really kick off the book with the TikTokification of social media. Really how TikTok has kind of shaped how things go. And I’ve heard him talk about this a good bit. The idea basically that TikTok has changed it from social media to interest media. You know, used to be your social platforms would follow the people you choose to follow, your friends and relatives and whoever you’ve chosen to follow on social media. Now, most of what you get in your feeds because of what TikTok’s done is that they send you things that they think will interest you rather than those you follow.
Following still matters, but a fraction of what it used to. It’s more about just what your interests are and how the social platforms can deliver. And because TikTok has done that so very well, other platforms are all racing to do the same thing. And I’m sure you’ve seen that on Instagram and Facebook and other places you go where it’s less and less of content from your friends and the people you follow and more content that it thinks would interest you, whether it does or not, that’s what they’re trying to do. So he says in this chapter here, says, quote, make a piece of content based on who you want to reach and what you think they might be interested in seeing.
Post them on one or more platforms of your choice and look at your post analytics and comments to see what happens. In the new social media world, everything is about the content itself, not the people who choose to follow you. Creative is the variable of success. It’s that last line there. Creative is the variable of success. It used to be the number of followers was the variable of success. If I had 10,000 followers and you had 10, I would get more views every single time. And again, that still helps. I still may get more views, but if you have a great post and I have a bad one, you’re going to destroy me, regardless of the number of followers.
He talks next about the modern advertising framework. has a lot of acronyms in this book. This is one he calls PCS for post-creative strategy, listening to actual customers and gathering insights. He says in here, quote, brands should think about how they can convey different messages to different people instead of trying to force the same formats and messaging in all their ads. People will only consider buying something that means something to them. The only way to make a brand meaningful is to make it relevant to as many different people as possible. I call this being boardroom-centric versus being customer-centric.
the biggest issue facing the brands in the world today. He then talks about in different shows trying to how or if you go to like trade shows how to meet people there. He says as you’re asking questions think of what you can ask that the broader public may be interested. Instead of just asking did you have a good time here or what was your favorite part of the show which could still be useful for other things. Ask questions about what their favorite memory was from their own art class growing up. Get them to tie in things that more interested to the broader public and things that you can share. Next he gets in a whole section here of the cord
Variables lots of variables that kind of go in his lists of things and I’m gonna read through some of these lists Not all of them because he has a bunch but the ones I think that matter So the first one is cohort development defining who you want to reach So he seven things you should consider about who you want to reach So first he says define cohorts with teeth meaning be specific, know get very granular and who you reach You want to reach all people or all males or whatever get very specific who you want to reach He says next think of your cohorts like an accordion
His analogy there is your cohorts will always be shrinking, expanding, and changing. It’s always kind of getting bigger and smaller and like, yeah, define them specifically, but let that shift as needed. Third, he says, when you’re developing cohorts, consider the business objectives of your company. Next, define a high volume of cohorts. The fifth one here is the creative you produce could hit multiple cohorts. So keep that in mind. It doesn’t have to be one group. It could be multiple. He says, consider, but don’t overthink media addressability. You know, the number of people you can reach in your ad targeting through paid ads.
Think about what that might look like if it’s too tight or too wide or what that could be. Lastly, he says, consider subcultures, stages of life people are at, affinities and passions, psychographics, cultural trends, and more. So don’t just look at just who they are and what they do, but look at all kinds of different things to build that cohort. The next thing he talks about is PAC, P-A-C, platforms and culture. I’ve heard him talk about this a lot. He says it’s the new requirement for your advertising knowledge. So to gain platform knowledge, understanding these platforms out there.
It says first, take account of all the features a platform has. You should be playing with this stuff and learning what it does. Number two, this is an important one. says, remember, the platform just wants you to stay on for longer. The goal of all these platforms is to get people to stay on there. They don’t want them to click off to buy your product or to learn more or whatever. And that’s a challenge. I’ve talked about this on here before, and it’s a growing problem. So just keep that in mind as you’re doing this. Next, he says, pay attention to what’s unique on a given platform. Next, also though, pay attention to what’s similar across platforms. So how are platforms similar? What’s unique?
pay attention to those uniquenesses. You he said earlier, you know, don’t put the same content on every platform because platforms behave differently and audiences on there are different. So keep that in mind. The fifth one here for gaining platform knowledge is notice how similar user behaviors show up differently on different platforms. So again, you have the same cohort on different platforms. They may behave differently. I said, step up to date on new tests that platforms are running. Consider the psychology of the user when they’re on the platform and be a practitioner, not a headline reader.
Said that kind of the intro part like you can read about this stuff You can listen this stuff like you are now which is great But go out there and do it try things run tests post content measure it see what’s happening like I’ll tell you as much as I can Gary V’s book will tell you even more but you got to get out there and do it The next piece he talks about is strategic strategic organic content SOC what modern advertising looks like He says here quote the bottom line is being a good advertiser on social media is harder than being a good advertiser in the traditional marketing world This is the biggest thing that fortune 500
Fortune 500 companies have upside down. They feel like it’s so much easier just to do it on social media and really it’s harder. It can be much, much better. You can reach more people, reach them more targeted, can do a lot of great things, but it’s not easy. So for SOC, for strategic organic content, he says when done properly, SOC helps you do a few things. You can do three things with it. You can build brand relevance from day one. If you’re advertising, you can get out there right away. Second, you can turn your best performing content into performance ads to drive sales. I’ve heard him talk about this a lot, like.
Post organic content, like I said a minute ago, measure it, see what works and all that. If you have a piece that’s doing great, then throw some dollars behind that piece and man, it’s gonna do awesome, because you already know that people resonate with it, so why not put some money in it to make it go further? And then lastly, SOC can help you make higher production commercials with proven insights. So again, if you’re gonna do videos and that kind of stuff, you’ll have insights behind it to make things work well. He says when you’re making content native to a specific platform, consider these things, because again, platforms are different, so.
The first is kind of obvious, but what sizes and dimensions are you working with? Some are square, some are landscape and portrait and different things. Second, you using a platform’s in-app features? So some platforms have features they want you to use, and if you do, you’ll generally do better. Does your content reference contextual elements from the platform? Do you of self-reference the platform at all? And are you using cultural trends within each platform? We see this probably the most on TikTok, but certainly on others, where there’s trends that kind of sweep through TikTok. And are you taking advantage of those trends?
He also says lastly in this section some other considerations. Are you putting out enough volume of content and Gary’s approaches put out just a ton of content? I think he goes a little far for most of us, but he’s talking about doing, you know, multiple posts every day on every platform. And I guess if you have the time and ability to do quality content, it’s unique to each platform. Cool. But yeah, but are you putting out enough? He also has talked to folks that say we’re all in on this company. We’re gonna do the greatest we can. He shares a story in the book. So great. How often you publishing? It’s well, not enough. He’s like, no, no, come on. How much are you publishing? They said once a week.
that guys come on like I’ll even admit that’s not enough there you should be posting a time or two a day and a lot of these platforms depending what your goals are. As other considerations that we talked about is your copy optimized for the platform what does your profile hygiene look like if people do click back to your profile which is rather rare but if they do like it should look good. Ask are you showing different sides of yourself your brand or your business. He’s great at this if you follow Gary V stuff he does about marketing a lot and all that stuff he talks about wine quite a lot he talks about the Jets quite a lot like he shows different sides of himself.
He says, do you occasionally mix in content to get answers to questions you have? So asking questions as part of your content versus just answering them all the time. And are you finding the right balance between asking for business while providing value? And there’s different thoughts on the balance there, but it always should be providing way more value than you ever asked for business. And the exact ratios are different, 5 to 1, 10 to 1, but it should be a whole lot more. Next he gets an amplification, spending against what works, as in not wasting a penny. So some principles he has there.
Make sure you have enough creative for your ads, so you can have enough variety and reach your audiences enough. Don’t completely dismiss ad platforms because they quote, don’t convert. There’s different angles to that. We’ve talked about on this show before where you may not convert directly, but it still may be raising your brand awareness and getting people to go find you on Google and doing other things where the ad itself may not convert directly. And maybe that’s OK. But again, you’ve got to watch the numbers too and see what makes sense. Related, says, experiment with different ad objectives and rely on common sense and optimize your content based on your ad learnings.
He gets in a few more things with videos and that kind of stuff. We’ll talk about that more later. The next section of the book, though, he really gets deep into specific platforms. And this is I was talking about at the top, where some of this stuff’s going to get old. In a few years, you’re going to read this like he’s missing the new platform we’re all using. It’s not even mentioned here. But for now, this is still pretty relevant. And I think it will be for a year, two years, something like that. It’ll fade over time. But as of today, this is good stuff. And again, I encourage you to dig in the book and read more. First, he talks about TikTok. He’s huge on TikTok. One little note I saw on there, he said,
Because of how content is distributed on TikTok, there are large groups of people who are fans of genres like hashtags, book talk, corporate talk, sports talk, wine talk, and more. So hashtags can be relevant there if you have a specific subgenre of people on TikTok. A few factors to consider if you’re making TikTok content, specifically for TikTok. He gives some factors for each one to pay attention to for that specific platform. So for TikTok, he says, pay extra attention to the first three seconds of your video.
He says, use TikTok search to find community specific trends and creative formats and interact with the community through comments and video replies. So lots of you can do there again. He’s a whole chapter on TikTok. You can go read that for yourself. We’ll move on here to Instagram. He gives just a few factors that are important for Instagram. Want us to mix up your creative styles, utilize the range of creative units available and pay extra attention to your Instagram profile hygiene. And I agree. think Instagram is probably the most important for your profile because you can’t really put links with your posts, but more people look at your profile.
In a TikTok, you can’t link either, people aren’t going to look at that too much. In others, you can kind of send more direct stuff straight through it. So Instagram, I would agree that your profile probably matters the most on Instagram, but certainly keep that tight in all of them. Next, he talks about X, Twitter. He insists on calling Twitter through the book, which I’m fine with there. A few things to keep in mind there. says use Twitter to listen. It’s a great platform for listening. And he says post at a high volume. Things go so fast there, you want to really churn stuff out on Twitter. Next, he talks about LinkedIn. And in the book, he talks about how if you’re just not on LinkedIn, you’re
basically invisible for any kind of business relationships. You should be on there. A few things to keep in mind. He says here, he says, first, know the difference between company pages and profiles. He says, second, treat LinkedIn as a content platform, not just a sales engine. I think we’ve all kind of seen that. There’s people that put out great, useful, fantastic content on LinkedIn. And there’s people that just sell, sell, sell, and DM, and just spam you to death. And there’s a clear difference between how we feel about those things. LinkedIn says, pay extra attention to your copy.
Twitter, saying post at a high volume. LinkedIn, want to be, certainly post regularly and often, but pay more attention, do a good job. And then he says lastly, use the targeting capabilities of LinkedIn’s ad product. And this is where I’ve heard him talk again before about publishing a good bit of organic content on there, but then finding those pieces that perform well organically, use their ad product to target and push them even further. For Facebook, he says to keep mind for Facebook to mix in Facebook reels in your strategy. He says use Facebook’s analytics to get more strategic.
He says this, there’s a quote under the section I liked, said quote, at the end of the day it is my belief that over 90 % of the content on social media lacks any level of strategy even when the goal is to drive business outcomes, which is the biggest reason why I thought it was time to write this book. So that’s relevant. The last one I think is probably already falling off a little bit, he says use Facebook groups to engage communities. Facebook groups are still good, great, great. They used to be amazing. Facebook groups used to be where it’s at. Largely because everyone was on Facebook and so group content would kind of filter in now as people are splintering off.
The groups aren’t as important and I think Facebook’s not even buffing them down a little bit further just in lieu of ads and other suggested content. Still can be great. If you have a Facebook group, there’s some that are still awesome. I feel like it’s fading, but we’ll see where it goes as time goes on. He talks about YouTube next. He says, consider the following points as you make YouTube content. He says, lean into the science behind the art. So it’s certainly a lot of art to YouTube. There’s a lot of science to it too, both in how you build things and write descriptions and thumbnails and all that kind of stuff. I suggest you could use YouTube to document events, use those to showcase things and then.
Optimize your videos for searchability. Last I’ve seen, he said it in here, and I think it’s still accurate, that YouTube is the second biggest search engine in the world behind Google. And of course, YouTube is owned by Google. But people search on there a ton for stuff. And so you want your videos to be optimized for searchability. I also talked about Snapchat a little bit. No specific ideas there. But can read his book about that. Chapter 5, can send content examples. And I’m going to read just.
It’s a huge list and each one he has a couple paragraphs for. I’m just gonna tell you the different kinds of content. Maybe some of these will resonate and say, oh, that’s an idea I hadn’t considered. But he talked, and you’ve probably seen most of these too. We have straight to camera selfie videos, mascot-driven content, cartoons and comics, strategic reposts of others, real life backgrounds, street interviews, ad reads, modern commercials, lenses and filters, listicles, content with multiple actions, surprise and delight.
testing product concepts, memes, pop culture crossovers, user-generated content, UGC, skits, lead gen promotions, green screen, asking questions to gain insight, in-person event promo, and there’s one little quote in here I did wanna share for that one, for the in-person event promo. It says, quote in the book here, people also tend to worry about whether putting the event on social media would make it less likely for people to show up to the event because they can just watch it online. I believe for every one person,
or every 1 % of people who decide to stay at home next time and watch it online, 10 % might look at it and decide they want to show up in person the next time. It’s a net gain for your business. So he’s saying the first time, you may lose a few people that decide, yep, I’m going to watch it online. But all the people that watch it online, 10 % of them say, well, shoot, I should have been there. And so you’ll lose a few percent that watch it, but you’ll gain a whole lot more that come back to you next time around. So again, he says it’s a net gain. Some other ideas here in this list continuing on, he has Notes app posts. So I’ve seen people post like pictures of the Notes app.
Text over a visual background, visualizing information, using products incorrectly. This is Cobby Lane’s whole thing about how to use products incorrectly and how weird they are. Did you know posts? In-app creator templates, GIFs, carousels, text posts. With text posts, one little quote I pulled out of here, said, companies frequently treat LinkedIn as a place to PR themselves. But if you act more like a media company rather than a salesperson, you’ll be surprised how much more you can sell. So I talked about that minute ago. Like on LinkedIn, can either
provide value or try to sell things. And if you provide great value, you actually sell more things probably too. So it works out well. And then the last few we had in this list here of ideas, you have throwback content, know, last from the past kind of stuff, quick takes and opinions, incentivizing engagement, reaction videos, podcast clips and authentic partnerships. And again, in the book, if any of those sound interesting or you’re not sure what some of those were, the book unpacks each of those with a couple of paragraphs for each one. And yeah, really some great ideas in here of things you can be doing. ⁓
Nearing the end of the book here, he gives on some real life scenarios. And those are kind of hard to summarize in the book. You can’t tell stories of different companies and successes and failures they had. There were a couple quotes in here I liked that I want to pull out. This first one I still don’t totally agree with, but it does seem to be trending that way. He says, quote, searching on social media for time of need services is a trend that will not slow down. So time of need services would be like a plumber, electrician, something you need right away. And right now, you’ve got to Google for that. You’ve got to go to Google or maybe next door. There’s places you may go for that.
Generally you don’t do that in social media. you need a plumber now because you have a leak, you’re not going on social media for that yet, but it’s starting to trend that way. And so it’ll be interesting to see where that goes. And he’s convinced, he says, you know, searching for social media for time of need services is a trend that will not slow down. So he’s probably right. I think it may take some time, but it’s one to watch. ⁓ He encourages you with these real life scenarios to quote, start by downloading the apps, visiting websites and analyze the companies as an investor would analyze them.
And then he gets into age too. know, a lot of people kind of think if you’re young, you’re great at this stuff. If you’re old, huh, it’s too late. But he’s certainly against that. He’s just about exactly my age. I’m almost 50. And I think he’s right in that ballpark somewhere. But he says in the book, quote, some 20 year olds are truly great at modern marketing, just like some 57 year olds are truly great at it. This isn’t about age. It’s about skill. And then I want to kind of close. I’m going to reread. It was actually the end of the book, that initial quote I told you at the top. I want to read that again because it was at the end and it summarizes things very well. before I do that, I do encourage you day trading attention.
Fantastic book if this any of stuff interests you I encourage you yes to read this one now because this is not Philosophical, you know eternal evergreen kind of stuff This is tactics and how to do things great today in 2025 2026 like this is the stuff that works now It’s probably not gonna work later new platforms will come up some will die So if this interests you I encourage you to go check it out But yeah I’ll close again with what he closed the book with that I also opened the show with but he says this The thesis of day training attention is simple figure out where underpriced attention is and learn how to effectively storytell in those places
But as I always say, you can’t just read about doing pushups. Execution is the game and that’s the hard part. Brands, businesses and influencers often find it difficult to keep up with all the latest platform changes happening constantly. And many of them ask me how to stay on top of it all. My honest answer, you’ve just got to set aside time and put in the work. With the TikTokification of social media, the opportunities today are much greater than 10 years ago, but so is the effort required.
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