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I’ve Reddit All

Reddit holds a very special place in my heart.

I worked the front desk at a hotel throughout my four years of college. I remember the weekend shifts like they were yesterday… the morning rush would obliterate every ounce of energy for about an hour, and the remaining seven were an absolute drag. The shifts felt especially long after being forced to stand in a polyester suit for hours on end.

One day, a manager on duty introduced us all to Reddit. Suddenly, seven hours were filled with (not so) discreet browsing of pages dedicated to cute puppies, ultimate fail videos, tear-jerkers, TDIL’s, and more. There are so many pages, – if you’re not a total noob, which I am most certainly not, you know these are called subreddits.

My front desk shifts were now met with renewed anticipation to lose my mind into the Reddit community that welcomed me with open arms.

It’s all business here

I am a total noob at Reddit for a digital content strategy. As my soul becomes lost upon a plethora of content, I somehow lost complete awareness that brands are actually marketing on the platform. The tricks are very subtle. Fortunately, I’ve spotted three.

1.     Recruit an army: Since Reddit is essentially controlled by its users (redditors), a brand can’t easily promote itself through its own content– it needs to leverage an army of its own redditors to do the promoting for them. To promote Anna Kendrick being on its cover, Glamour Magazine had the star recite some gems of water-induced wisdom from the subreddit “Shower Thoughts.” For example: “They should announce a sequel to Groundhog Day, and then just re-release the original.” The lesson here was not exactly new content from the brand, it leveraged user content to put itself in front of the conversation. The dignified humor also helped.

2.     Don’t speak: Another low-key method to promote a brand is by asking a question. When a post title asks as question, it is more likely to produce two times more comments than a title that’s phrased as a statement. You might remember when the very influential President Obama shut down Reddit by hosting an Ask Me Anything (AMA) for 30 minutes. While one single brand might not have that kind of influence to shut down the site, this reflects the power of empowering redditors. Get them to talk on your terms.  

3.     Keep it short: This is a rule of thumb that can and should be followed in nearly any circumstance. For Reddit, this is especially true considering that posts with titles of 60-80 characters generated more upvotes. Basically, we’re in 2020, and there’s a lot of content out there. I don’t have time to read paragraphs about your thoughts, even if you’re divulging the juiciest secret of all time. Trust that redditors will skim to get to the point quickly– so make it easy for them.

r/be-cool

Reddit is so cool. So, in short, do your best to stay cool in its presence. DO NOT be the slimy advertiser. Be cool.

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TikWhat?

Remember the horror of actually having to say the entire phrase ‘laugh out loud’? Good riddance! The amount of time I save by muttering LOL is unreal. Not only that, but casually dropping an ‘LOL!’ every so often has increased my cool-factor tenfold.

Okay, none of that is true. In fact, I’m a bit appalled that we [our collective society] are so careless enough with the human language, that time and time again we develop slang to…what exactly? Well as it turns out, slang’s primary purpose is to playfully disguise true meaning in a way that determines who is in the know and who is out.

In short, humans are obsessed with social affirmation. We just can’t help it tbh. And I fundamentally believe that this is why TikTok was born.

Kids these days

TikTok is a platform for sharing short videos – that’s it. That’s all the rage. Just like phrases are out and acronyms are in, videos beyond 15 seconds are way out. There’s something to learn through this social phenomenon. Today’s generation is exposed to such a vast amount of content that there is a need to make the videos super-fast in order to get through all the content. We saw this ‘instant-everything’ take fire with Amazon Prime 2-day delivery, as well as with binging entire seasons of shows at once with Netflix. Now, we’re seeing it in the way we ingest social content. Because there’s a lot of it and it's only growing from here.

So now that the phenomenon has begun, we’re seeing a wave of trailblazers pave the way for what’s possible with a bit of creativity and a mere 15 seconds.

With the goal to be in front of consumers where they are and where content is resonating, Cosmopolitan and Seventeen magazine used TikTok (formerly Musical.ly) to create how-to tutorials and fashion shows. The shows have helped Seventeen amass more than 2.2 million followers in less than a year on Musical.ly, which is double the number of followers the magazine brand has on Instagram. The key thing to realize is that good content on a new hit platform isn’t the recipe for success. It required these brands to identify what type of content performed best among their target audience and use them as a way to reach new and existing viewers on a new platform. It’s an important distinction to make. However, it’s an easy trap to fall into when a new social platform is suddenly everywhere.

The average TikTok user spends almost 52 minutes of their day on the app. Considering that there is a 15 second limit to these videos, that gives a target audience a lot of time to take in a brand’s content. Some of the most noteworthy accounts have used the platform to provide an immersive brand experience– this is an essential lesson learned. For example, the NFL and NBA tell stories, highlight player talent, and even showcase community content. It’s clear to see that these brands are tinkering with their best qualities and using them to create a presence that’s unique and in the form of video content.

Welcome back humans

For the most part, there’s a common thread in each account deemed impressive on TikTok­: a renewed human connection. We often forget that behind tweets, Facebook posts, and even perfectly filtered Instagram pictures, that there is a human behind the scenes– a real human, just like any one of us. Videos provide humanity. TikTok reminds us that every brand has a face– even if it’s a stand-in face that represents a collective community. Or if you’re the NBA, the figurative face of your 11.3 million followers. NBD.

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I Hear Tweets In The Dark

I joined Twitter today. 

Yes, I am very late to the game, but my friend said I was old and missing out on the primary source of today’s dialogue, so I succumbed to the peer pressure that is Twitter.

I should probably explain why I avoided the platform for so long. You see, like the rest of the world, I’ve seen my fair share of Twitter fails: the time the PR exec sent a very inappropriate tweet before a trip to Africa, the time the Red Cross employee got ‘Slizzerd’ on the corporate account, the time Kenneth Cole repeatedly put his foot in his mouth. The list goes on... and as it does, I am crippled with fear.

I have nightmares about my own Twitter mishaps- mistakes that I haven’t even made yet! (primarily because until today, I didn’t have a Twitter account). Nevertheless, the fear is so very real. That’s because Twitter has always felt like walking a fine line between saying something that’s okay and not okay. In just a matter of seconds, a single tweet can destroy reputations. You can consider me absolutely intimidated.

Patience, Young Grasshopper

Twitter is a live, conversational and public platform that allows for accessibility between brands and consumers anywhere, anytime. I like to imagine that one day I will have the confidence to swiftly tweet 280 non-offensive characters and yet still be entirely on-brand- if that isn’t a true goal to strive for, I don’t know what to tell you. Until then, I’ll look at the Twitter pros (and the misfits) to understand how they use Twitter to amplify their brand and not as lighter fluid to burn it to the ground. So, what can we learn from the brands that glide through the Twitter minefield with ease and grace?

There are two critical aspects at play here:

1. Define the brand’s identity. Some of the best Twitter identities- Arby’s, Netflix, Wendy’s – have found a harmony between humor, subdued call to actions, and engagement with their followers. While these are all important elements, without consistency, an identity can completely fall apart. If your followers don’t know what to expect with your presence, then there’s probably some work to do. That feels like a simple rule of thumb to follow. If we dig deeper however, there’s a lot of work behind that. Identity isn’t just about tweeting the wittiest clapback. You can guarantee those that do so consistently have clear and thorough brand guidelines that define not just a tone of voice, but its reason for existing and the value the brand provides its stakeholders. With those measures in place, consistency is much easier to achieve.

2. Know who you’re speaking to. Sure, this might be a platform, or virtual soapbox to say *whatever* is on your mind to a 330-million-person audience. But there are a lot of tweets in existence- half a billion tweets are sent every day. Now multiply that by the number of days that Twitter has been around, and that’s probably a big number that I can’t mentally process. The point is, if you’re not speaking directly to your target audience, they will be lost in a vast sea of tweets. Corporate tweeters need to know that they aren’t just promoting a brand or solving a problem: they are performing for an audience, supporting customers throughout their journey, and even, subtly, selling.

Tweet at me.

If there’s a lesson to learn about Twitter, its that with the proper guidelines in place and a sharp gauge on your target audience, you’re a lot less likely to offend 330-million tweeters. Not so scary... 

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Facebook Is A Beast

You’ve Lost a Friend in Me

Facebook is huge. Like eyes out of my skull huge. HUGE.

I’ve always had a hard time understanding how a thing my mother uses to update relatives in remote cities in Nicaragua translates to 70.7 billion dollars. Facebook doesn’t even let you pick a song to feature on your profile (RIP MySpace) which I think is pretty lame.

Facebook lost me as a proverbial friend right around the time that Farmville was a really big deal. So, I’m the kind of person that nods and forcibly smiles when a group of people talk about Facebook Messenger or any other new AI-enabled trinket.

I’m a Millennial and I don’t use Facebook. It never really appealed to me. I need pretty pictures in my life, not words posted by Karen . My life is full of words. I’m a writer. And writers need breaks from words sometimes, it’s true.

All I See Are $ign$

But wait. Instagram is a part of Facebook now? Cool. 

Like I said, I knew Facebook was huge, and because of that they can enable two fundamental things that keeps their huge status growing: insight and personalization. Let me explain…

There are over 2.6 billion monthly active users on Facebook , making it the largest social network in the world. The really important underlying factor to understand is that 2.6 billion of users means 2.6 billion of people’s behavior to analyze and draw insights on. Those insights feed a deep understanding of consumer behavior so that businesses can personalize content precisely to grab their target buyer’s attention. That starts to (slightly) explain the many zero’s involved in Facebook’s revenue. At last!

To put the ‘insights + personalization= really good things’ equation into perspective, I applied it to my semi-irrational lipstick consumption. I know that sounds weird, but just go with it. Much like myself, make-up shoppers don’t really buy cosmetics in-person anymore. To be specific, 46% of shoppers discover their coveted items online. The old way was braving through the suffocating perfume fog in department stores, trying on a couple of things and going home with a lipstick that the sales clerk said looked “absolutely stunning” on you, but actually really doesn’t. Online platforms sans smothering fragrant clouds are where it’s at now, like the beloved Sephora.

If I was a user on Facebook, I would like, comment, share or click on beauty content which would create greater insights into my own preferences. Am I a red or orange lipstick kind of girl? Tinted moisturizer with SPF or nah? Sephora could reel those insights in and use them to inform their content development. The next time I find myself browsing Sephora’s feed I might find a video that helps me understand if my skin tone is suited for a red or orange shade of lipstick, or perhaps a short educational message about the benefits of SPF. Hey how did they know I was thinking about that????  

The last thing that seems important about Facebook content is the hyperlink. There is a link here, there is a link there, there is a link EVERYWHERE. You know what else you’ll see everywhere? A crisp recipe for content success: a relevant statement that raises a challenge their demographic is facing (made possible courtesy of Facebook Analytics), a direct link to a product/s that solves for said challenge, and a compelling image that makes you think “I was just looking for a pink blush, I need that pink blush”- see image below and like if you agree.

Whoa.

I feel as though the days of Farmville are very over. Maybe? I don’t know, I’ll have to reactivate my account to find out, but on that topic, think Facebook will take me back?

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The Thrill of The Pin

Inspiration Addiction

Anyone who’s ever completely filled not one, but two entire albums of Pokémon cards (or baseball cards, whatever), is very familiar with the thrill of collecting. I’m talking about the premium card albums, the ones that carried 4 cards on double-sided pages, housing up to 400 cards. Let’s do the simple math for that: at one point in my life I collected 800 physical Pokémon cards.

That very thrill of absolutely needing 800 of something is exactly how I feel about Pinterest. Do I need 2,332 pinned recipes for spelt flour cakes? Yes. 600 pinned quotes about wisdom? Yes. 1,004 pins for slightly different variations of throw pillows? Oh yes. Why? I don’t know, but more is more is the name of the game here.

Personally, the Pinterest fixation is far more satisfying than what any number of likes or dm’s can offer. That’s because the inspiration that Pinterest enables sets my heart and desires on fire.

The Purchase of My Dreams

I am basically an expert at creating effective Pinterest boards for my own bailiwick. Pinterest for companies however feels like untouched sand. You see, my practical use for Pinterest is to use it as a place to store, or remember, every item I could ever want to buy in my lifetime. Before you judge that, know that I’m not alone. Of the 322 million Pinterest users, 93% of these Pinners use it to plan their purchases.

Turns out that organizations took our practical use of organizing pins and used it to thrive on our inspiration. And I am here for it. They use Pinterest as a visual search engine, feeding it with their visual content, so that I (the 1 in 322 million self-proclaimed Pinner) can plan and act on my dreams…with their product. The formula is rather simple and ingenious: Pinners are looking for their next great idea, brands can help them find it. When treated as a powerful search engine, the platform is prime feeding ground for getting a brand or a product in front of the consumer early in the decision-making process

Now, let’s go back to the 322 million Pinterest users because that’s also really important. This network of millions are not users, they’re dreamers. They we are literally begging for more content, ideas, or products. Put it this way, if this were anything like fishing, it would be incredibly uneventful because your catch is nearly guaranteed. Seriously, take your pick because more than 300 million people have saved more than 200 billion pins.

Organized Creativity

There truly is an art to creating Pinterest boards. Don’t let anyone, anyone, convince you otherwise. They are not a collection of resting images; they are stories and inspiration fuel. The businesses who understand the difference are the ones with cult followers that don’t just save individual pins, they collect every board like a treasured Pokémon card.

Take Whole Foods for example, they know their audience (don’t get me started) and they know their brand. Their audience prioritizes health, so naturally their boards mirror their image of health.

One Kings Lane, a luxury home décor retailer, took organized boards and micro-organized them. Every organized boards falls under a category: Make, Inspire, Color, or Shop. 

The great examples are plenty, but they all share the same approach of taking their brand identity, contextualizing it into a broader image of a lifestyle and creating a comprehensive presence- or board- that shapes a dream for Pinners.  

In other words, Pinterest…we love you.

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Tumblr’ing Back

A Brief History

Apparently, Tumblr is having a resurgence. To be more accurate, Tumblr never actually went away, just for me it seems. Here's the Tumblr- circa 2003- that I remember and until today have long forgotten:

Imagine me wearing checkered Vans and hair that strategically covers one partial eye. I’m listening to Dashboard Confessional (also known as the band you listen to when you want to be utterly miserable, because at the ripe age of thirteen, is life anything but?) on likely an illegal mp3 music downloading app (SOS Spotify!). Suddenly, a friend sends a picture to my personal email- [email protected] and it takes me on a seemingly endless visual adventure of music lyrics, emo-haircut inspiration, cute puppies, cute band guys and so much more. After perusing this new addiction, “Tumblr”, I develop favorite accounts. I follow these accounts almost religiously because they embodied a personality or experience that went with my vibe, such as images of coffee shop windows on a rainy day, black and white photos of converse sneakers, and who knows what else. It was a long time ago and I’m a different person now- albeit for the love of puppies that persisted. I eventually stopped checking those Tumblr accounts because I had more pressing issues, like deciding who my top 6 friends on MySpace would be!

Tumblr Today

Fast forward almost 20 years later and Tumblr is alive and well…apparently. At first, I almost didn’t believe it. I now get my content fix through Pinterest or Instagram. Certainly not from Tumblr. That was a thing of my teenage past. Or was it?

A quick search led me to realize that companies are thriving on Tumblr today. They are literally living their virtual best lives on this platform that I thought was nonexistent. Even more fascinating was seeing large corporations like Coca-Cola, Comedy Central, The New Yorker, and Vans (!) bring their brand to life through images. Each Tumblr ‘blog’ strategically features captivating images that lures their audiences into another rabbit-hole of digital content exploration within their own website. Or they focus on enhancing a particular brand value or quality. Coca-Cola created a fun spin on their ‘Refresh the World’ vision and their page is dedicated to images that portray the happy moments of life. That right there is a cohesive brand and digital communications strategy.

The individual communities use Tumblr with a similar aim of forming an identity through a hodge-podge of sorts. They collect images, videos, and quotes like tokens that collectively shape and express their individuality.

That’s when it hit me: Tumblr is a marketer’s dream. It was then and it still is now. That’s because every company shares the desire to put their individual stamp on the world. That means developing an identity and getting creative in how it gets translated out into the world. Images and advertisements do a great job at doing that, but Tumblr puts in front of those users who ‘vibe with your vibe’ and become cult followers in the image that you are portraying and selling.

Corporations also realized that for some reason, we absolutely love communicating in GIFs. So what better way to get people talking about your product is to give the people GIFs to talk about. You bet Tumblr enables that. 

Tumblr Tomorrow

Almost 20 years later and I find myself falling into yet another endless adventure with Tumblr. This time with better music, better hair and better shoes.

I’m still unresolved if I would suggest Tumblr to my clients as part of their digital strategies. But at the very least, I have a much stronger argument for recommending it.