Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary Vaynerchuk sells wine. An immigrant from Belarus, Gary took over his dad’s New Jersey wine store. In the 90s he began selling wine via the store’s website winelibrary.com. At some point, Gary saw an opportunity to leverage social media to promote his wine business. Not being the world’s best writer, he started a video blog about wine which he called Wine Library TV.
Every day, Gary filmed himself with consumer video equipment to talk about wine. Unlike some of the business’ old school aficionados, Gary used plain language in describing the wines tasted during his show.

Gary’s informal style (described as unpretentious, gonzo approach to wine appreciation) in addition to leveraging his heavy use of both Twitter and Facebook helped grow his daily audience to 80,000+ people. Vaynerchuk often refers of his followers as both “Vaynicacs” and “Vayner Nation.”

Despite criticism from the more conservative wine purist audience, Gary was commemorated via the inclusion in the 2009 Decanter Power List, an index of the 50 most influential figures in the wine industry.

Vaynerchuk recognized the opportunity to begin promoting his business success which helped him earn the label of the “Social Media Sommelier.” Thanks to numerous national TV appearances, mentions in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and BusinessWeek and a number of high profile speaking engagements, Gary was able to secure a seven-figure book deal with Harper Studio.

In 2009, Gary was named #18 on Askmen.com’s Top 49 Most Influential Men list and published his first book “CrushIt” which quickly became a New York Times Bestseller.

Gary at Web 2.0 Expo – Building Personal Brand within the Social Media Landscape

More Reading

WineLibrary TV
Crush It Book
Twitter’s “Garyvee” Vaynerchuk Gets A Book Deal (Wall Street Journal)
Pop Goes the Critic (New York Times)
Gary Vaynerchuk’s Startup Advice (BusinessWeek)