How to Win on Facebook and Social Media in 2025 | The 505 Podcast PART 2

Stories, Strategy, and the Small Moves That Add Up

In a wide-ranging conversation, Gary Vaynerchuk blends personal anecdotes with practical business strategy to sketch a road map for founders, creators, and marketing teams. From a surprising lottery tale to concrete guidance about hiring, social content, and emergent revenue channels, the discussion lands on one persistent theme: do the work, move with purpose, and build systems that outlast trends.

Small Experiments, Big Social Reach

A simple creative tweak becomes a recurring recommendation: convert still images into one-second videos to dramatically increase reach on Facebook and other platforms. That micro tactic — test one-second video, measure organic views, iterate — illustrates an approach that prizes speed at the small scale and patience on the macro timeline. The idea is powerful and actionable for anyone looking to improve organic distribution without extra ad spend.

One-Second Video And Organic Reach

• Short-form motion often outperforms static posts for organic visibility.
• Quick email alerts or internal memos can mobilize large teams rapidly around what works.

Hiring, Culture, And Scaling The First Ten Employees

Vaynerchuk emphasizes that the first hires determine culture: make the first ten employees feel like family, over-communicate, and hire for humility and work ethic first. Early-stage teams benefit from generalists who can learn, while later stages demand more specialists. He argues that B-level skills combined with A-level loyalty and execution can outperform high-skill but disconnected hires in a scrappy environment.

Practical Hiring Advice For Startups

• Create an environment where newcomers are taught the craft, not just expected to perform immediately.
• Favor people who are "down for the cause" and exhibit curiosity over polished resumes.

Content At Scale: Strategy, Production, And Measurement

Content at scale wins when it's grounded in a clear strategy and judged by organic engagement rather than paid reach. Vaynerchuk cautions that paying for views is not the same as earning them, and recommends diversifying platform presence: build YouTube, podcast production, shorts, LinkedIn, Snap Spotlight, X, and Facebook rather than betting on a single channel. He also returns to his long-held credo: "document, don't create" — film relentlessly and shape purpose-driven content from that raw material.

AI, Authenticity, And The Rise Of Live Social Shopping

The conversation moves into the future, exploring AI influencers, platform verification, and the role of AI as a partner in cultural discovery. Vaynerchuk predicts a layered reaction to AI-created personalities: some audiences will reject them while others will engage regardless. More importantly, he highlights live social shopping — on platforms like Whatnot and TikTok Shop — as a revenue-first solution for creators and mid-tier influencers who may not reach tens of millions of followers but can monetize influence through live selling and affiliate-style commerce.

Becoming A Marketing Department And Embracing Experiential Work

Beyond content, Vaynerchuk names experiential marketing, culture strategy, and joint-venture departmental models as durable advantages that AI cannot easily replace. He describes a service model where the agency becomes half of a client's marketing department, embedding staff and processes to deliver long-term value rather than transactional campaigns.

Practical Takeaways For Creators And Brands

• Test one-second video clips instead of photos for higher organic Facebook reach.
• Turn your agency into a co-owned marketing department to increase client retention and impact.
• Use AI as a research partner for trend detection, but remain the human filter that prompts and contextualizes insights.
• Explore live social shopping as a direct revenue stream for creators who can sell on camera.
• Keep the first ten employees close and teach them the business; culture scales from early intimacy.

The conversation ultimately ties together urgency and patience: act quickly on tactical experiments like short-form video while cultivating long-term hunger and discipline across strategy, hiring, and productized services. From building culture to launching live shopping drops, the episode offers practical moves creators and founders can test now and scale over time.