Gary Vaynerchuk is coming to Chicago tonight! I’ll be there. Because it’s Gary V Day in Chicago, I’m sharing this post from October 9, 2008 with 20 tips and a video. Enjoy! And…yes, I’ll be back with a report on what it’s like to meet Gary live. Thanks and congratulations to Kally Olexa for bringing Gary to town on his Crushit! book tour.

How does DNA relate to personal branding and community building? Read this post to find out.

On twitter, Gary Vaynerchuk, host of Wine Library TV: Gary Vaynerchuk’s daily wine video blog, shared a link to his New Media Expo presentation where he talked about how personal branding is in your DNA. At almost 48 minutes, the video is well worth watching [especially to hear Gary talk about his personal DNA], but if you don’t have the time right now, take a few moments and read these highlights.

Gary Vaynerchuk’s New Media Expo Presentation – My Top 20 Takeaways

1. Understand who you are and execute it – examine your personal DNA
2. “Legacy is greater than Currency” – the quote on Gary’s favorite t-shirt and a reminder that you don’t want to go for the quick sale, instead you want to build equity in the world
3. Two things that will absolutely win this game: community and content
4. Monetize: Google the words you want to talk about and look at who’s advertising to that audience, click on the ads and contact them about sponsoring you
5. Become part of the conversation in your space, allowing at least 1-3 hours a day to comment
6. Where should you be? EVERYWHERE!!!
7. Open as many platforms as you can
8. When you comment, leave a solid response that shows you understand the space
9. Search for your name every single day
10. Take what you can and build on it
11. Produce a show and own your niche – it’s a gold rush out there
12. Use Viddler instead of YouTube; you can add your own logo to Viddler
13. Uploading to YouTube is a huge mistake; you’re promoting their brand, not yours
14. Work 17-18 hours days on your projects
15. Understand what you want – you have to go with what’s important to you whether it’s being at your kids’ soccer games or owning the New York Jets
16. Stay on brand; @garyvee is Gary’s twitter id. He says it was a huge mistake.
17. You are going to control your message anymore; that ship has sailed. You will be defined by the universe.
18. Dominate your niche, no matter how small, and find the players who pay to advertise in your field and go after them.
19. Answer every single email, even if you get 250 a day like Gary does
20. Know what’s important to you, turn down opportunities if they conflict with your priorities

Video: Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV talks about Building Your Brand in a Web 2.0 World