Social media platform strategy and attention arbitrage in 2024

Executive overview

Attention is the scarcest resource in creator economics. Platforms rise and fall in relevance faster than most creators adapt, and the ones who win are those who move to where attention is underpriced before everyone else arrives.

Gary Vaynerchuk, Brandon Steiner, Kevin "Grill Guy" Speez, and Zeddy Will cover platform strategy, creator authenticity, parenting, and entrepreneurial mindset across a wide-ranging conversation.

The core arbitrage is always the same: go where good creators are absent and attention is cheap.

TikTok Live vs Instagram Live

• Instagram Live pings your existing followers; viewership peaks immediately then falls as people drop off
• TikTok Live pushes you into non-followers' feeds algorithmically while you're live
• Result: Instagram Live declines from 2,000 to 800 in minutes; TikTok grows from 600 to 4,000 over an hour with no extra effort
• TikTok's discovery advantage makes it categorically different for live content

Underused platforms in 2024

• Snapchat is widely overlooked by creators but has a distinct, engaged audience — celebrities like The Rock are using it for behind-the-scenes access
• YouTube Shorts provides TikTok-level reach potential plus long-term search traffic that feeds your main channel — treated as "oxygen" for channel growth
• Facebook still has large 20-30 year old audiences; almost no contemporary creators are making content for it, so the arbitrage is wide
• Instagram Reels remain effective but the platform is saturated — equal effort produces less reach than Facebook, Snap, YouTube Shorts, or TikTok
• Shares are the key engagement signal on Instagram right now; the algorithm prioritises watch time and shares over likes

Followers vs content as the variable

• Having 15 million TikTok followers doesn't guarantee reach; a new account's first post can outperform it if the content is strong
• The algorithm distributes content regardless of follower count — people stopped intentionally following accounts
• A million TikTok followers currently earns fewer brand deals than 500k Instagram followers because corporate buyers are behind the times — this gap will close within 24 months
• Chasing follower counts is less important than producing content the platform wants to distribute

Attention arbitrage and platform timing

• Every platform has a window where good creators are scarce and reach is cheap
• TikTok's window opened two years before COVID; most creators missed it because they were comfortable on Instagram
• Once attention shifts, winning on the abandoned platform becomes hard — supply and demand
• The playbook is identical for every new platform: move early, produce consistently, leave before the window closes
• Gary's new book Day Trading Attention frames this as a formal strategy

Creator authenticity vs algorithm pressure

• Making content purely for what performs creates resentment; audiences can detect inauthenticity
• "The streets don't fuck with people when they can smell it's no longer authentic" — applies to creators, brands, and rappers equally
• Zeddy Will faces pressure to stay in comedy while his music is gaining traction — the advice: go hard on what's pulling at you, even if the audience resists
• Grill Guy balances dad-humor content (high-performing) against content he actually finds funny — the recommendation is to trust your own instincts long-term
• Living for the algorithm is a losing game; short-term optimisation burns out creators faster than the platform moves on from them

Parenting, identity, and the transition out of corporations

• Kevin (Grill Guy) struggled with balancing a second child against accelerating professional opportunity — framed as a "great problem" requiring gratitude alongside navigation
• Brandon Steiner's challenge: kids raised for independence no longer need parental involvement — empty nest compounds when the parent's identity was built around the family
• Steiner's insight: stop helping your kids if you want them to thrive; independence is the goal, even when it hurts
• At 65, Steiner left a large company and describes the return to entrepreneurial speed as "a highway with no red lights"
• Conviction and humility are not opposites — bravado without humility is what fails, not confidence itself

School, grades, and alternative paths

• All four guests performed poorly academically; all are professionally successful
• Gary's only A's across four years of college were in Phys Ed; he ranked 243rd out of 254 in his high school class
• Brandon was "half illiterate" and struggled with reading; he built Steiner Sports into an iconic collectibles brand
• The system teaches one way; roughly half of learners don't fit that mode
• Grades measure compliance with a specific learning format, not future capability — the correlation breaks down in the real world

Entrepreneurial mindset

• Speed is the differentiator: being "just a little faster" compounds into a completely different outcome, like the difference between elite athletes
• Corporations slow decisions through meetings and approval chains; entrepreneurs moving without those constraints win on velocity alone
• You can have conviction about your future success and still feel genuine humility and gratitude when it arrives — these are compatible states, not contradictions
• Decisions made against your own intuition are the source of most real regret; losing on your own terms beats winning on someone else's
• Do not let age or external pressure determine when you stop dreaming or building