In today’s newsletter, I’ll walk you through the content strategy framework I use. As social media platforms have shifted into entertainment platforms, brands have really struggled to get audiences to listen to core brand messaging. I’ve repeated it a million times in this newsletter, but people don’t have short attention spans, they have short consideration spans. It’s a line first heard from Cameron Gidari, VP of Social Media & Innovation at Major League Baseball. In this landscape of discovery-based algorithms, how you package up an idea is everything. Below I explain:

• The Peanut Butter Method for content packaging

• A helpful visual to share with your team

• 8 examples from brands

Plus details on campaign writers’ rooms, three post formats to try this week, inside Figma’s new social show, and more.

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In my Tuesday newsletter, I wrote that while you do have to entertain on today’s algorithms, that entertainment should always be in service of brand. I think the incentives of the platforms have caused some accounts to take their eye off the ball. But when I think about companies that are sitting in the middle of that venn diagram of “brand building” and “entertaining”, the luggage brand Away comes to mind.

Just look at their Topside campaign. They had their VP of design explain the technicalities of their new top-opening suitcase style while standing in front of a whiteboard. It felt like a very “your ordinary is your audience’s extraordinary” way into their design process. It garnered 3.4M views across platforms and, as you’ll find out below, sold 13 weeks of inventory in less than three weeks. One commenter referred to the VP of design in another video as their “new favorite influencer”.

Since then, they’ve let tweens direct a campaign. Launched Amtrak Jazz, a website where they turned every active train in the country into a musical note. And, just a few days ago, announced @actuallyaway. The new account will feature short films inspired by actual travel stories gathered from their audience. It reminds me of The Ick, an account with over 600K followers that recreates dating stories, but for travel. You can watch the first episode here.

The strategy is led by Cayla DeRegis, who readers of this newsletter might remember from our conversation about NBA Research & Development. She has also spent time at places like Mischief and Buzzfeed.

Below Cayla and I talk about why Away is moving from posting to programming, how they create engaging product education posts, and why it’s important to find inspiration outside of social media.

Rachel Karten: First, how would you describe Away’s approach to social media?

Cayla DeRegis: Our philosophy for social media is to create value before extracting value—we always aspire to serve the viewer first. We serve them in order to gain their attention, trust, participation, and eventual brand advocacy. We want to explore content and narratives that are entertaining or educational and invite people to come back and see what we do next.

That philosophy also gives us a simple filter for what we put into the world: “Would we stop scrolling for this piece of content if we didn’t work at Away?” And just as importantly, are we excited to make it? We want to create work that we like and are proud of as a creative team, not simply content that fills a calendar. When we’re genuinely excited by an idea, there’s a much better chance that excitement will come through to our audience, too.

With that, we’re shifting to more of a human-first storytelling lens, championing and celebrating our community of travelers.

Rachel: What are some of the ways you’re doing that?

Cayla: We’re thinking beyond individual posts and toward more participatory experiences. The internet asks people to watch; travel asks people to do. On social, we create content that invites our audiences to contribute, collaborate, experience, and help shape the story.

Our Amtrak Jazz activation with Josh Wolk is a great example of that, as is this week’s launch of @actuallyaway, our new dedicated episodic social channel.

Rachel: I just saw the announcement post for @actuallyaway. Tell me more about it!

Cayla: @actuallyaway takes that idea even further by putting our community at the center of the storytelling. The channel will be home to short films inspired by actual travel stories gathered from our audience, making the community’s experiences both the inspiration and the content itself. It’s an exciting evolution in how we’re approaching social: moving from posting to programming.

Rachel: One of my favorite recent campaigns from Away was for Topside. Can you tell me how the idea for these more technical whiteboard videos with Hannah, your VP of design, originated?

Cayla: When I joined Away, one of the things that immediately piqued my interest was getting an inside look at how much thought and work goes into making our products. So when we were looking for ways to introduce our newest product, Topside, I knew I wanted to bring our process to the audience.

Topside had been in development for a long time. Internally there is a lot of intention and attention paid to the travel problems we’re trying to solve, the iterations it took to get there, and why certain decisions are made. It felt like there was an opportunity to give people access to a part of the process they don’t normally see.

Rachel: Can you share any of the success metrics? I’d imagine this video sold some suitcases…

Cayla: We sold 13 weeks of stock in less than three weeks! The success of this style can’t solely be attributed to this one organic video, but the response to the content was huge. That video has more than 3.4M views across channels and is still the most viral post year-to-date. The collection is now back-in-stock, with other colors to debut soon.

It also showed us that the format could keep working beyond that one launch. We’ve continued the series for other products, and those videos perform 95% above our average view baseline.

Rachel: Like you mentioned, Hannah has appeared in more videos since that campaign. Someone commented that she’s their favorite influencer. Why do you think this style of content is resonating?

Cayla: People resonate more with people than they do with brands. A familiar face creates a sense of recognition and continuity. You’ll remember enjoying the first video you saw with Hannah, so when she shows up again in your feed, there’s already a connection there. It makes the content feel familiar, approachable and worth watching, rather than another piece of branded content. It also helps that Hannah is so effortlessly cool – on and off camera.

Rachel: The hook in the Topside video is particularly great. “Designing a suitcase for people who like to live out of their luggage…” How do you approach coming up with engaging ways into videos?

Cayla: Product education videos can very quickly feel like ads. We talk a lot about social being the new TV, but brands still tend to approach educational content like they’re making a commercial.

TV has figured out a hundred ways to make learning entertaining through formats we already know and love—competition shows, process shows, game shows, reality shows. They take a structure people understand and apply it to a new subject. When we’re developing social content, I’m often thinking about whether there’s an entertainment format we can borrow from to make a brand or product story genuinely worth watching.

This series is essentially our version of “How It’s Made”—giving people access to the process behind a product they might otherwise never consider.

And then there are the hooks, which I obsess over. I’ll sometimes write and rewrite a hook 12 or 15 times before I land on it. A hook is visual, verbal, and written, and all three have to work together to create enough curiosity to make someone want to stay. Getting that right is genuinely an art, and probably one of the hardest parts of making content work on social.

Rachel: I recently wrote about Trial Reels. Do you use them at all?

Cayla: In the past, I’ve used Trial Reels to repost some of our top-performing content and see if it could reach a new audience, and I’ve also used it to A/B test different hooks so we can keep learning what resonates for different types of videos.

There’s a lot of potential there, and it’s definitely a tool I want to put more structured experimentation around so we can get clearer about when and how it’s most useful.

Rachel: Where do you find inspiration for the work you do in social media?

Cayla: I am a big consumer of content, but I don’t actually spend that much time consuming content on social. I consume a lot of other mediums – TV, film, books, magazines, comedy shows, museums, performances. Those are often the things that inspire me the most.

I think it’s easy to consume content on social and think, “Oh we can make a post exactly like this for our next launch.” vs. Looking outside of social gives you the space to think about storytelling and creativity in new ways, so you can bring something more unique to the platform rather than just adding noise.

Rachel: What do you love about working in social media?

Cayla: I feel so lucky that my job is to make things and share them with the world. I get to wake up every day and work with really cool creatives to tell unique stories and have fun doing it. That’s a very special career to have.

What I’m scrolling

ChatGPT is citing Reddit far less than it did two weeks ago. According to analysis by Promptwatch, Reddit held a steady 3.8% share of ChatGPT Search citations. But on August 14 that share collapsed to under 1%.

YouTube strategist Paddy Galloway, who has worked with brands like Red Bull and the Philadelphia Eagles, shared his YouTube playbook. I liked his home run ideation strategy. It basically says that you can make 10 “single base hits” (posts with an average amount of effort) or you can put the effort of those 10 videos into one video. Home runs that are attempted once a month or quarter. He says it’s a power law. “A much better idea and execution can hit exponentially more views.” It’s a good reminder for brands that are more focused on volume than quality. I also enjoyed listening to him on Colin and Samir here.

I love this video from Gap and Southern University Human Jukebox Marching Band.

Speaking of, Walmart alum Justin Breton is joining Gap Inc. to drive original content. Variety reports that Justin will serve as Gap’s VP of development and will “drive original content across a range of genres and platforms to support the apparel giant’s ‘Fashiontainment’ business initiative.” Shout out to ’s for alerting me to this.

A creator posted a eulogy to “background remover” because posts that use it are now being flagged as AI on Instagram. In a follow up post, Canva claimed this shouldn’t happen with tools like background remover.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani got 2.8M likes and 35M views on a post announcing he’ll start wearing a helmet when riding a bike. According to Social Blade, the mayor’s account has added 868K followers in the past 30 days.

Check out the Link in Bio Job Board

The Link in Bio Job Board features all of the best social media roles in one place, updated daily. Right now there are roles from places like Lovable, FIGS, Penguin Random House, and more.

If you work for a brand that’s hiring within social media, this job board is for you too. Post your job listings to get in front of talented social media marketers.

Thanks so much for reading. If you enjoy free interviews like this one, you can upgrade to a paid Link in Bio subscription. You’ll get weekly strategy newsletters and quarterly trend reports, along with access to the Discord community.

I want to note that this newsletter is an educational resource and can likely be expensed through your company. I have even written a handy template for you to use when asking!

If you’re already a paid subscriber, thank you for making Link in Bio possible!

If I were to oversimplify here, Chanty Beluga is a character from the mind of comedian Courtney O’Donnell. The set up for the posts is always “A woman named ‘Chanty Beluga’ [insert activity]”. You’ll find her introducing herself at a pool party and ordering a coffee. The bit is mostly around the name “Chanty Beluga”, with each skit bringing in a small nugget of lore. She just got served court papers, for example, but we don’t know what for. Don’t worry, the audience will come up with something.

For those of you who hadn’t yet heard of Chanty Beluga, I can sense your confusion. That’s the whole thing? Yes, and that’s sort of the point. What’s harder to explain is how Chanty Beluga is the desire for discovery on algorithms that have commoditized it. The feeling like you found something niche and wanting the social capital of being the first to tell a friend about it. Chanty Beluga is shared humor on feeds that feel more alienating than ever. Chanty Beluga is just mysterious enough that everyone else can fill in her story. I could compare Chanty Beluga to Backrooms but I’ll spare you.

Longtime readers of this newsletter might remember Courtney O’Donnell from this send in 2023 about comedians who work in social media. At the time, Courtney was the the Social Media Creative Lead for McDonald’s at Wieden+Kennedy. She’s one of the funniest people I know.

Courtney was kind enough to let me interview Chanty Beluga. I wanted to learn more about how she thinks about marketing and the brands she’d like to work with.

Here’s what’s in today’s newsletter:

• My interview with Chanty Beluga

• The marketing pattern I picked up on from listening to Q2 earnings calls

• Five post formats to try this week

• A fintech brand created an accountant influencer that gained 1.3M followers

• The social role we’re going to see more of

Chanty Beluga wants a brand deal with Drano

Rachel Karten: Why do you think people relate to Chanty Beluga?

Chanty Beluga: I think they relate to me because of my common name, Chanty Beluga. It’s all so wild. My friends have always told me I’m funny and that I should start posting on social media. And when my videos started to take off, I was like “what!“.

Rachel Karten: Have you been approached for any brand deals yet? Are there any brands you’d love to work with?

Chanty Beluga: I reached out to Vagisil to partner with them, which would’ve been a dream collab, but they passed. A few other brands I love that I hope reach out: Drano, Sharpie, and Ziprecruiter.

Rachel Karten: You clearly know how to get attention online. What advice would you give marketers reading this newsletter?

Chanty Beluga: Lean into the things that make you special. I was bullied as a kid for my name. Now, it’s the thing that makes me stand out. Also, maybe use the color pink in your marketing ideas! It’s the cutest color.

Rachel Karten: What can we expect from Chanty Beluga next? I hear there’s a contest?

Chanty Beluga: There is a Chanty Beluga contest on Friday Aug 21 at 5pm at Grand Army Plaza in New York. It is not a lookalike contest, everyone has to say their best “Hi I’m Chanty Beluga”. After that, who knows. I probably want to take a vacation to Turks and Caicos.

The marketing theme I picked up on in Q2 earnings calls

You can learn a lot about marketing by reading earnings call transcripts. What are CEOs saying about social media? What value did that viral campaign really drive? While looking at the Q2 reports, I noticed an interesting pattern emerge. It’s an important warning for brands right now.

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Right after I sent the newsletter, I came across a post from the creator Bran Flakezz that articulates this point well. He was recapping a meeting he had with a TikTok rep about the algorithm. They told him, “When you have no niche, the platform has no idea who to push your video to.” He said that there is a section in the backend of TikTok that establishes and assigns a “niche” to every creator based off the kind of content they make. When your account doesn’t have a focus, your posts have a “cold start”. The algorithm air traffic control doesn’t have a strong test group to point that video towards. (Even if you have 1.4M followers, like he does.) Accounts that stay within a specific world make it easier for the algorithm to essentially source viewers who are more likely to enjoy and give the video the momentum it needs to reach more people.

For a lot of brands, especially small businesses, it’s worth exploring what a more focused version of your account could look like. How do you create content, consistently over time, that gives the algorithm enough clues to avoid a “cold start”?

Speaking of focused accounts, today’s interview is with one of my favorite new social shows. ScreenTime is like if your applied the camp and theatrics of SportsCenter to the creator economy. A post analyzing and breaking down A.J. and Big Justice has over 29K likes. It’s hosted by comedians Cam George and Pete Ditzler. You might also recognize them as the hosts of the now-shuttered Talking Talk Tuah podcast, where they hilariously dissected new episodes of Haliey Welch’s Talk Tuah. They approach their subjects with that “high effort, low stakes” energy that works so well on social media right now.

We talk about why their videos are resonating (“it can really activate people when they see two 5’6” guys in 3-piece suits acting as the authority on their favorite creators”), what the production process looks like, and how they plan to work with advertisers.

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Rachel Karten: First, why did you pivot from Talking Talk Tuah to ScreenTime?

ScreenTime: While we hold a deep admiration for Haliey Welch and all Podcasters, we never truly felt it was our own calling. We are forever grateful for all of the wisdom we learned from the different hosts we companioned from week to week, but we wanted to play with the format and deliver internet insights in a way that felt novel to us.

There was the better part of a year when we were searching for the next project that really felt right to us, and we stumbled into kismet at a Gelson’s wine bar (imagine the vibe of an airport bar inside a grocery store with a surprisingly OK menu) on one of our brainstorm nights.

The TVs there were broadcasting Inside the NBA, and the frenetic transitions and stat call-ups spliced into heated conversations about players’ capabilities felt like the perfect analogue to content commentary. Similar to sports, content moves at a breakneck pace, and it is impossible to keep up with its dizzying streams of vital numbers, so faithful commentary of it demands more dynamism than a standard podcast set-up.

Rachel: ScrollCenter is a show that you launched on Patreon. ScreenTime is the clips from that show. How did you land on that model?

ScreenTime: We are borrowing the upload strategy of ESPN itself of making full episodes of their shows exclusive to cable or streaming and providing just highlight moments to the more public internet, and it also turns out to be the most sensible posting process in line with our production. On each visit to the studio we rent, we record a full episode of ScreenTime, which consists of 8-10 segments around five minutes each analyzing different creators.

The full episodes end up in the range of 45 minutes, and since we are funding the project ourselves, we wanted to establish a Patreon with exclusive access to the full episodes to draw in people interested in supporting the show. There is also the ambition of eventually expanding the ScrollCenter network to offer other series with different hosts who tackle the internet with their own perspectives.

Rachel: Why do you think the ScreenTime clips are resonating?

ScreenTime: The traditional monoculture may be dead and gone, but many content creators sit within a subliminal, modern entertainment pantheon, and it can really activate people when they see two 5’6” guys in 3-piece suits acting as the authority on their favorite creators.

We are actively working on the best production process for offering even more topical segments, but as we have been primarily setting the context of who our quintessential creators are, the debates have gotten heated between the two of us and with the audiences who have their own informed opinions to share in the comments. It has also been extremely gratifying to see comments from people who recognize us from Talking Talk or even Beast Pod Official and are impressed with the new production.

Rachel: The production value is so good. What does the team look like?

ScreenTime: Thank you! We are still figuring out the best team formation within budget constraints, and we would certainly love to grow enough to pay for additional support. For the first two episodes, we had five friends cut deals on offering their talents and gear, while an employee at the studio provided tech support. For our third episode, only Pete’s girlfriend was available to return and provide assistant directing support, and we paid the studio extra for their in-house camera and audio set-up.

On the post-production side, we handle all of the editing, with Cam designing the bulk of the stat graphics, and Pete specializing in the plug and play of multimedia. We have commissioned a number of talented friends and Cam’s little brother Liam to produce all of the music for the show, as well as a VFX artist for the beautiful motion graphics that keep the show zippy. It is also just us who handle all of the uploading and channel management. We live together, so it is pretty easy to coordinate things via iMessage.

Rachel: Have you worked with any advertisers yet? Are you open to it?

ScreenTime: We are currently in talks with a couple of brands, and while we are open to ad deals to financially sustain the show, we also remain fairly selective to ensure any promotions lend themselves well to the format of the show and are not for predatory products or services. We think the best partner collaborations would come from segment sponsorship (think “POV Power Hour, Presented by Popeyes”) or wardrobe sponsorships. If anyone at Men’s Wearhouse is reading this and interested in working with us, please reach out to us at mattrifeishilarious@gmail.com.

Rachel: Anything else you’d like to share?

ScreenTime: If any of our clips have made you think deeper about the world of content, please consider checking out the full show on Patreon. This is a very ambitious project for us as we juggle other jobs to fund it, and we are trying to keep it as independent as we can. Shout out to our amazing team of friends who make ScreenTime possible!

Check out the Link in Bio Job Board

The Link in Bio Job Board features all of the best social media roles in one place, updated daily. Right now there are roles from places like Olipop, Ladder, DÔEN, and more.

If you work for a brand that’s hiring within social media, this job board is for you too. Post your job listings to get in front of talented social media marketers.

Thanks so much for reading. If you enjoy free interviews like this one, you can upgrade to a paid Link in Bio subscription. You’ll get weekly strategy newsletters and quarterly trend reports, along with access to the Discord community.

I want to note that this newsletter is an educational resource and can likely be expensed through your company. I have even written a handy template for you to use when asking!

If you’re already a paid subscriber, thank you for making Link in Bio possible!

A showrunner is a job you’d typically find on a television production. They lead both the creative and management of a series. They steer the show’s ship. So what are they doing at a brand?

In the past few years, we’ve seen companies like Bilt, Spotify, InStyle, Anti-Recidivism Coalition, Alexis Bittar, and more greenlight social shows. These are recurring series, sometimes on independent accounts, that stick to a specific plot or format. With this, comes showrunners. Both Jonathan Borge at InStyle and Cyrus Ferguson at Bilt include “showrunner” in their Instagram bios.

The platforms are incentivizing this style of content too. Instagram launched a new “Series” feature. TikTok built an ad product specifically for microdramas. YouTube announced a way for creators to organize their videos into seasons and episodes.

As brands and platforms build more infrastructure around social shows, I wanted to get a bit more tactical on the topic. How long does it take to film a season? What mistakes have brands made? How much does it cost?

Below you’ll find:

• The algorithmic benefits of a social show

• A conversation with the creative behind @Life100

• Five rules for creating a series

• How to budget for your brand’s social show

Plus four post formats to try this week, details from Away on their delightful collab with Amtrak, and more.

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Back in November, one of my favorite creators launched a marketing agency. You probably know Anthony Po, or @anthpo, from projects like Kid With Crocs, Timothée Chalamet Lookalike Competition, John Chungus, and Bunch of Friends. His internet performance art has likely racked up billions of views, but the most impressive part to me is that he gets people to participate. Have you ever inspired hundreds of strangers to show up to watch you eat a jar of cheeseballs?

In a recent essay, I wrote about how “breaking through” in today’s attention ecosystem isn’t about views. It’s about participation. I know something is resonating when the more interesting content is being made in comments sections and on personal accounts. I’d argue no one knows how to optimize for that behavior better than Anthony.

When he announced he was starting an agency called Pufferfish with his former MrBeast colleague Talia Schulhof, I immediately knew I’d want to interview them for the newsletter. But I wanted to let them cook first. As the agency approaches one year, I decided it was time to reach out. They’ve now worked with clients like Adobe, Coach, Epidemic Sound, Cash App, and Airlearn. How have they translated their creator instincts into brand momentum?

I talked to Anthony and Talia about how they make something “go viral”, getting buy-in for wild ideas, and why we might see brands make original feature films soon.

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Rachel Karten: First, can you tell me a little bit about Pufferfish?

Talia Schulhof: Pufferfish is a creator-led marketing agency and content production studio. My co-founder, Anthony Po, and I started the agency about a year ago. The two of us met while working for MrBeast on the short-form content team in 2023.

We started the company to help brands make content and launch campaigns that are designed to spread online. Most marketers first look toward a brand’s competitors as a hurdle to conquer for market share, but they really should be looking at content creators as their biggest rival when it comes to capturing attention. Brands will not stand out unless they put forth something that is just as, if not more, entertaining than what creators are putting out there organically.

Our experience making viral content on our own accord informs how we advise our clients so that they can think like creators and resonate with audiences as effectively as creators have been since the dawn of the internet.

Rachel: The biggest social media trope is a boss asking their social team to “go viral”. But you’ve marketed your agency as being able to do just that. As Business Insider put it, you’re a “creative marketing company focused on viral stunts that have a cultural impact — both in person and online”. How do you define viral?

Anthony Po: We don’t think of virality as a pure numbers game. We care about the value of a view more than we care about the view itself. We would much rather make a video with 20K views that people leave becoming true fans, as opposed to one with 10M views and the people forget about the video within a day.

Talia: Though we’re positioning ourselves as being able to help clients go viral, I don’t think “viral” is the offering. It’s really just a byproduct of the work we do.

We don’t go to our team and ask, how do we make something viral? We ask, how do we make something funny? How do we make something that makes someone step back and go, I’ve never seen anything like that before? How do we create something people have no choice but to share because it speaks to them on a deep level?

I think the word “viral” has lost its meaning over time. We use it as an all-encompassing term for things that exist on an incredibly broad spectrum of visibility and cultural impact. We call a MrBeast video that gets billions of views viral, but we also call things viral within their respective corners of the internet, even if 99% of the populous has never heard of it. “Viral” as a term feels familiar—it’s a buzzword—so it’s easy to throw it around because most people have a very positive association with the term. But frankly, the depth of reach and the value of a view is probably a much more important metric that we like to focus on. Sure, we can call it success if we launch a “viral” campaign that generates 10B views. But then there are also projects that maybe reach 50K people on a super profound level, and that’s still success in our eyes and perhaps even more valuable.

Rachel: If I asked you to sum up how to make something go viral, what would you say?

Anthony: There’s not a hack for it. It’s a matter of taste, being aligned with zeitgeist, and being able to execute upon something that you believe people will be delighted by.

Talia: “Viral” comes as a result of people spreading a message, and people don’t spread a message without a reason. It really comes down to the psychology of speaking to your audience in a way that resonates, whether that’s making them laugh, making them care about an issue through poignant storytelling, or making something so novel they feel compelled to send it to someone they care about.

If you approach content creation with how you can make someone feel rather than just what you are objectively presenting to them on the screen, you’re tapping into the emotions that will ultimately get the content to spread (or to go “viral” for lack of a better term).

Rachel: Based on your work, I’d imagine you pitch clients some wild ideas. How do you get buy-in?

Talia: This is really at the heart of what we do, and also at the heart of what makes a client a good fit. The work we do isn’t for everyone, because in order to engineer the successes we’ve had, we have to take risks and do things that have never been done before.

Marketing teams often want data to back up an idea, a proof of concept, examples of similar things that have worked before. That’s not what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to do things people have never seen, which means there’s often no proof of concept, and that can make buy-in harder. But everyone who’s ever done something revolutionary was the first to do it. If a brand wants to stand out, they have to take risks on things without an existing proof of concept.

Sometimes getting buy-in is about picking the right partners who give us that flexibility and trust. Other times it’s about grounding the foundation of an idea in something familiar, then making strategic tweaks that bring it into new territory while it still feels comfortable enough to convince the powers that be.

We literally proposed putting the words ‘kock,’ ‘dik’, and ‘pussi’ on billboards for Airlearn (they all mean innocent things in other languages). I remember pitching it on a call with the CEO, and after I finished speaking there was at least fifteen seconds of silence. I thought to myself that we’d just lost the client. Then the CEO said, “I love it. Let’s put kock in Times Square.” It came down to pitching with a great graphic and explaining exactly why it was aligned with the brief. As long as a concept speaks to the overarching brand goals, a wild idea can be justified.

Where we’d struggle to work with a client is if, even when all signs point to yes, and the idea achieves what they need and stays aligned with the brand, they still say no because it feels too out there. That probably means we’re not the right agency for them, because we’re looking to push boundaries, not make what feels safe.

Rachel: You both come from the creator world and deeply understand today’s attention ecosystem. What typically stops brands from producing the type of content that actually breaks through?

Anthony: People and brands who don’t consume modern-day culture are going to do a bad job at producing content. How are you possibly going to make the things people care about if you don’t care about it yourself? CMOs should be consuming content constantly. If you’re in charge of a brand, and you don’t feel passionately about consuming culture, you’re fighting an uphill battle.

Rachel: When I try to pull a through-line of the type of work you do, I come back to participation. You’re usually building wonder and mystery, that ultimately gets people to post about the thing you’re doing. How do you get people to participate? Especially if the participation is driven by a brand? I loved the Cash App campaign with Azzi Fudd where you sent fairy godmothers to Uconn to grant students’ wishes.

Anthony: I think participation is a great way to describe it, not only in the physical aspect, but also in the ability to share a story with your friends. Ultimately, the internet should be a place that is exciting and fun to be a part of, and that’s the internet that I came from in the late 2000s. So for us, whether the participation is showing up to a park or having excitement about contributing to a comment section on a video, participation is a great way to articulate our through-line.

Talia: For brand work to succeed, it has to be an exchange between brand and audience. Getting people to participate is a matter of integrating it into the idea from the get-go and making sure it gives way to digital or IRL participation, or both, depending on the concept.

With the UConn activation, we added things beyond just posting on Cash App’s brand page—we planted a lot of UGC, we worked with UConn students as PAs who posted on Yik Yak and got the conversation going among students. A ton of videos from the student body cropped up in response. We made a moment on campus so irresistible that people couldn’t not share it. We want to create moments where people feel like they can film something, report on it, maybe go viral themselves.

A lot of people have their very first experience with virality providing coverage on something else, whether it’s filming a concert, clipping a YouTube video, or posting a reaction to a clever marketing campaign. The fact that the discussion and participation can reach similar heights of visibility as the source material is exciting, and it encourages audiences to participate even more.

Rachel: You spend a lot of time on the platforms. Have you noticed any shifts lately?

Anthony: I think the biggest shift is that people are becoming much more attuned to content that’s clearly engineered to perform metrics-wise rather than made because someone genuinely cared about the idea. Generative AI has accelerated that, because people are surrounded by so much manufactured content now that they’re getting better at recognizing it. So you’re seeing a real backlash toward creators who feel more like businesses than people, because once it becomes obvious that something is optimized primarily for virality and monetization, audiences check out emotionally even if they still click.

Rachel: What do you love about social media?

Anthony: It allows me to pay creative people and those younger than myself. It also allows me to delight people through satellites and a bunch of wires in the ground, which is really a crazy thought.

Talia: I am who I am today because of social media. My creativity was shaped by it from the time I was eleven or twelve, posting on Tumblr and making secret photography Instagram accounts.

I love how social media, in its current form, democratizes entertainment. A random kid in their bedroom in a small, one-horse town can have an idea, pick up a phone, and make something that speaks to a lot of people. It’s leveling the playing field so new stories get told and creative minds get discovered in ways that weren’t possible.

I’ll acknowledge that social media comes with its fair share of issues, but it’s been revolutionary for entertainment, and it’ll be the single most influential force on the way we consume entertainment for the foreseeable future.

Rachel: What do you hate about social media?

Anthony: It’s become commodified. There’s always so much money to be made within it, and therefore it’s become opportunistic. I also have noticed that a lot of bad actors have come into this space specifically over the past seven years.

Talia: One thing I hate about social media—and this is also what makes our work hard—is that it puts performance, quantified, on display for everyone to see, and that has a psychological impact on both audiences and creators.

Netflix can put out a show, and the general public never has to know the viewership numbers; the viewer thus goes into watching it with an open mind. The closest equivalent to the display of success (or failure) for a Netflix series is probably something like Rotten Tomatoes. But on social media, when you make content, your failure or success is on direct display in the form of a like count and a view count that everyone watching can see. People are subconsciously influenced by the social proof of seeing likes on a page. It’s like a laugh track in a sitcom, an indication of ‘you’re supposed to laugh here.’ A high like count tells people ‘you’ll probably like this too,’ and that’s why it gets pushed out further to more people. What I hate is that we’re encouraged to make things that yield vanity metrics. That takes a lot of the art and soul out of making content.

Rachel: Look into your crystal ball. What’s next in the world of brand social?

Anthony: Providing real value to real people. There are a lot of bots on the internet, and there’s lots of views to go around; but making a real community of people that trust you, learn from you, and are entertained by you is something you can’t fake.

Talia: I can never say for certain what’s next. We’ve gone through a lot of waves. Usually trends or cultural moments are pioneered by individuals and have a life cycle until they become overplayed. We saw that with lookalike competitions; hilarious and novel for the first few, but then it’s like, ‘okay, we get it.’

Something that I foresee coming into play a lot more frequently is brands playing in spaces where they “don’t belong.” I mean, A24 just opened up a restaurant in the West Village. But the most prominent example here is brands operating more like film studios. Once everyone picks up on the fact that people just want to be entertained, and positive brand association is an easy byproduct of that, brands will make huge investments into storytelling and distribution. It feels dystopian, but I wouldn’t rule out brands making original feature films that are layups for exclusive product integrations. We’re probably closer to that than we think.

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Trial Reels allows accounts to test video performance with non-followers. The posts are shared into feeds without showing up on the account’s grid. When it was first announced in late 2024, lots of brands immediately experimented. But from my conversations at the time, it seemed like social marketers used the feature a few times, saw middling success, and sort of forgot about it.

Not all brands ditched Trial Reels though.

Lately I’ve been hearing whispers from social marketers about how impactful the tool is when used properly. That if you put together a testing strategy, it can be an essential part of the posting process. For today’s newsletter, I talked to brands, agencies, and the platform itself to learn more about what’s working. One marketer shared with me, “We regularly see 10x to 100x differences in performance outcomes between video variations.” Another said, “What wins [in Trial Reels] shapes how we make everything else.”

Below you’ll find:

• What a Trial Reels strategy looks like

• The four types of Trial Reels tactics

• Why one agency calls the tool the “Second Chance Machine”

• Best practices that Instagram shared with me

• The reason non-follower testing is important right now

You’ll also find three post formats to try this week, @jeremyfindsai on if more platforms should adopt LinkedIn’s AI Slop button, inside The Booker Prizes’ longlist social rollout, and more.

Read more

I recently sat down with writer for an episode on ICYMI, Slate's podcast about internet culture. In it, we talked about the growing number of brands that are hiding ads in fake skits. Storytime videos masquerading as regular TikToks—all secretly trying to sell you something. No #sponsored disclosure to be found. It made our heads spin.

For today’s newsletter, I asked Kate to go down the “UGC creator” rabbit hole. Is this some legal gray area? Does the FTC care? Does it even work? She watched videos about bad bosses, toxic mother-in-laws, and “Spicy Cubes” to find out.

A lot of bad bosses get captured on TikTok. They’re caught red-handed, through covert footage of Zoom meetings in which they’re penalizing employees for leaving their camera off or logging on late. The videos themselves often reach millions of views, accumulating thousands of comments from concerned users. In one case, a manager even suggested their newly-pregnant employee quit. “Discrimination!!!!!!!!” reads one comment. “Sue them!”

“Omg I need to look into this!!!” the employee, who goes by @caroline.career, replied. But she won’t, because this video, and the many that look and sound just like it, are not real. They’re ads, scripted skits that have been contracted out to content creators who post them on dedicated accounts. If any of the millions of viewers clicked into the actual profiles, they’d see hundreds of videos almost identical to the one they just saw, and bios with nothing but maybe an affiliate code and link to whatever they’re really meant to be selling.

For Caroline, it’s Sprout, an AI program that generates resumes and cover letters, and auto-applies for roles. Customers who sign up through Caroline’s link get 15% off, and Caroline can get 30% commission. That’s in addition to the up to $2,000 she can make per video, according to the details provided on Sprout’s website (neither Caroline nor Sprout returned a request for interview).

There are a number of words for these types of creators, depending on who you ask. Sometimes they’re “affiliates” or “ambassadors,” but a creator I spoke to, who we’ve anonymized for privacy reasons, prefers “UGC creator.” She applied to become a creator for an AI interview coaching service because it was a way to make money without much experience, and now earns anywhere from $10 to $100 in base pay per video, with bonuses if her content hits certain milestones, like 500K views.

The content made by these creators isn’t just job-related, although that genre does incredibly well. There’s videos for AI notetaking services like SummaryAI and Granola, another account dedicated to WhoLeft, an app that tracks people who unfollow you on Instagram. One video for Sherlock, a platform for reverse-image searching potential romantic partners, got 25M views. There’s also videos for brands like Spicy Cubes—gummies that claim to act as aphrodisiacs—in which the product is a passing mention buried three quarters of the way into a two minute story about a toxic mother-in-law. “FOR EVERYONE ASKING ME ABOUT SPICY CUBES” the creator’s bio reads, with presumably an affiliate link to the website that may earn her a 25% commission.

But “UGC” isn’t quite the right word for these either, since the content is not from actual users, or made by paid contractors and then posted from the brand’s account. Nor are any of the creators in the aforementioned videos your typical influencer posting sponsored videos on their personal channels. The former comes directly from the brand, the latter is clearly marked as sponsored. These in-between videos for some reason slip under the radar without any kind of #ad disclosure at all, perhaps occupying some kind of gray area.

“Not a gray area at all,” Robert Freund, a lawyer who advises brands, agencies, and creators, emphatically tells me. “There’s no argument that this is not advertising.”

The proliferation of these videos isn’t surprising. Per Vulture’s “The Feed Is Fake” piece back in May, so much of what we see online got there thanks to undisclosed marketing campaigns, and not just for products or musical artists, but even opinions. Brands need to find their own ways to compete, and some that employ these more covert methods seem to find far more success with them than they do posting from their own accounts.

Summary AI, for instance, has just over 15K followers on the official brand account, with their in-house videos typically getting views in the low thousands. The account @.wfhgirl, however, which posts endless workplace skits pointing people to the app, often gets tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of views on her videos, although it’s unclear how that might translate into sales (“My job isn’t really to see or get the memberships,” the earlier creator I spoke to tells me about her videos for the AI interview coach. “It’s more just creating the content and getting it out there.”).

These creators also have the ability to battle it out in the comments, something that would normally reflect badly if it was coming from the brand itself. The creator I spoke with says she’s sometimes encouraged to respond in the comments to maximize engagement. “They like it when you’re kind of rage baiting the people,” she says of certain companies. “So then people can go in the comments and argue.” The comments are also a space where the creators can more convincingly name the brand without sounding like an ad, while also potentially taking advantage of TikTok’s “blue text” feature that identifies search terms and links them to TikTok search results.

None of these companies returned my request for interview, and without concrete data it’s hard to say how directly these accounts’ success translates to their own. What is clear is that the absence of an ad disclosure gives them an edge with audiences, but that might be a problem with regulators. While the Federal Trade Commission would not comment on the practice broadly, when approached about this genre of marketing, they pointed me to a section from their endorsement guide, which contains a number of stipulations seemingly being flouted.

At the very least, these videos should be clearly and conspicuously disclosing the relevant connection—whether that’s spoken, text on the video, through a paid partnership tag, or starting the caption with #ad. While many of these accounts have affiliate links in their bios, they are not clearly labeled as such, and just as many accounts have no bio at all, presumably hoping their videos raise brand awareness enough for a customer to go searching for it themselves. But even if these videos did properly disclose themselves as ads, that doesn’t account for the other issue: they’re skits, not real experiences. “The FTC requires that endorsements and testimonials reflect the honest beliefs of the person giving the endorsement or testimonial,” Freund says. “You can still have an unlawful piece of content that discloses that there is a connection if the person is appearing to be a customer of the advertiser when they aren’t actually a customer.”

And yet most of these videos remain untouched, although some, like the 25M-views Sherlock video, have community footnotes identifying them as undisclosed ads. “The more agencies and brands see others doing it, they just assume it’s okay,” Freund says of their ubiquity. It’s not that they’re taking advantage of any kind of legal loophole, but instead are being obscured by the sheer volume of other content online and, at first glance, passing as organic—for now.

“Why have I seen like 4 people across the internet do this exact thing,” one comment on @caroline.career’s pregnancy video reads.

“guys yall know its a skit right,” reads another.

“People,” one begs. “This is just a promo for Sprout.” Now that comment might be UGC.

One more thing

Rachel here. I hope you enjoyed Kate’s deep dive. Is your head spinning now too? You can follow more of her work by subscribing to Embedded.

While I usually cover smart uses of social media, stories like the above are just as important to the work we do. Algorithmic feeds have, to some degree, provided cover for brands to treat FTC laws as suggestions. The result is that marketers feel like they can create their own ethical boundaries. That’s not how advertising should work.

Deceptive practices are a slow rot to the ecosystem we all post within. Consumers are scrolling with more skepticism than ever. What does that do to social media in the long term?

I’m curious to hear what you all think. Leave your thoughts in the comments or join us in the Link in Bio Discord.

Finally, there are new roles on the Link in Bio Job Board. Check out the latest from Function Health, Sonos, and Tombras here.

If you enjoy free essays like this one, you can upgrade to a paid Link in Bio subscription. You’ll get weekly strategy newsletters and quarterly trend reports, along with access to the Discord community.

If you’re already a paid subscriber, thank you for making this newsletter possible!

I’m usually in the middle of something when I email myself, so the note reads like a cryptic clue for someone to decode later. That person is me, and it takes more time than I’d like to admit to put together what the hell I was trying to say. A recent one is just the word “Emeril”. At 10:42 pm on a Friday I sent “Where is the FTC?”. “Scree time on SC account” took me a while to figure out, but then I remembered I want to talk to the duo behind the account ScreenTime, who used to run the Talking Talk Tuah podcast.

Below is an email I sent myself when I saw Hannah Berner’s smile was going viral after a masseter botox mishap. I thought maybe a makeup brand could sponsor her.

I never ended up including it in the newsletter, but I am glad to see that CeraVe made the move. This weekend, she posted a smile update sponsored by the brand’s healing lip balm ointment. It has almost 3M views across platforms. This video complimenting the ad has 400K views.

Some of my best newsletter ideas come when I finally stop thinking about the newsletter. This is my imperfect process at capturing them. Now if only I could remember what I meant when I sent the two words “running list” to myself…

Here’s what’s in today’s newsletter:

• How @ThisIsSpotify is using data storytelling for social content

• This new creator account with 80M views is run by a media company

• I talked to Denny’s about their viral NVIDIA tweet

• Four post formats to try this week

• Are Times Square billboards the new brand deals?

Read more

The best campaigns right now realize that a hero asset isn’t enough. It’s a series of posts that create a pattern recognition. As Link in Bio contributor Matthew Stasoff put it in this essay, “As audiences stop consuming content in linear ways, brands will need to find ways to reach them in non-linear ways. Diverse touch points that find connection points. On-ramps bring people in—no matter where in the campaign rollout they tune in—and make them want to stay awhile.”

Today I am talking with Mojo Supermarket, the agency that has been helping Burger King tell their “There’s A New King And It’s You” story on social media. Before the commercial even aired on March 15th, the brand was planting seeds online. They gave customers the president Tom’s phone number for feedback and documented it—this video got 100K likes. The audience was warmed up by the time the spot ran. Since then, the brand has been sharing docu-style customer spotlights (one commenter wrote, “This is the kind of content we want from brands…love it! Keep up the good work social team! 🙌”) and more videos with Tom, who has become a bit of an influencer himself. They even have impressed customers sharing the improved burger on Reddit.

As social media has moved towards entertainment media, I’m seeing more brands try to gamify attention at all costs. But I think it’s important to make sure the thing you’re going viral for actually serves your brand and your audience. It’s easy to lose sight of that. Burger King’s campaign feels about as close as you can get to the middle of the venn diagram between “entertaining” and “brand building”. The proof is in the numbers. According to Marketing Dive, “Burger King U.S. in Q1 saw comparable sales grow 5.8%, outpacing RBI sales growth of 3.2% and reversing a 1.1% decline during the same period in 2025”.

Below I talk to Mo Said, founder and creative director of Mojo Supermarket, about why too many campaigns are based on a “fantastical reality”, how to build a reactive social process, and the role listening plays in the creative process.

Rachel Karten: First, can you tell me a little bit about yourself and Mojo Supermarket?

Mo Said: Mojo Supermarket is a creative agency that builds big brands on the internet. I used to work at big brand creative agencies that didn’t understand social, and social agencies that didn’t understand brand building. So we built something in the middle. Currently we’re the social AOR for TikTok, Burger King, we’re running the Doordash World Cup campaign, etc.

Rachel: I just got back from Cannes Lions, where I enjoyed reading the case study of the “There’s A New King and It’s You” Burger King campaign. Your agency has specifically been helping bring it to life on social media. Can you take me into your process for translating a big, overarching campaign into actually-engaging social moments?

Mo: When we joined the team, Burger King and their creative agency BarkleyOKRP were getting ready to execute a campaign that put guests at the center of the brand. But it was more than a campaign—they were focused on actually listening to the guests, improving the product and experience, and then telling the story of that. They described it as a potentially yearslong documentary of elevating the guest experience. And we thought that’s a pretty great strategy to take to social.

To kick off the campaign, Tom, the President of Buger King, was going to give out his phone number and take calls from real Americans. Listen to them. Get their feedback. We all thought…how many calls is he possibly going to take, you know?

But Tom exceeded everyone’s expectations. He was taking phone calls on his commute, on his lunch break, on nights and weekends. He cares so much. So we were like okay, we’ve got hundreds of phone calls. And a lot of them were pretty like…real. A guy passes by a Burger King on his way home, and the sign is broken. A kid who wants to one day own a franchise. A bunch of people who said the fries aren’t hot enough. And Tom genuinely wants to do something about all of those, not for content but because it’s the right thing. And what you’re seeing is the documentary of that.

Rachel: And what do you think agencies or teams get wrong when bringing campaigns to life on social media?

Mo: I think brand agencies get stuck on a “line” or a tightly wound idea that only works for one video, one moment, one script. And social agencies just spray and pray a bunch of unrelated ideas to hope something goes “viral”. Neither is right.

You need a brand strategy “Burger King is committed to improving the guest experience” and then tell that in a more episodic way. Each video is a proof point of a larger idea that forms in your head with the culmination of the work. It’s not a line to remember, it’s a personality and a point of view.

Rachel: Let’s talk about the bite heard around the world from a competitor’s CEO. You couldn’t have had better timing. Can you describe what that reactive moment looked like on your end? You already had that footage from the campaign, correct?

Mo: Yeah, our partners at BarkleyOKRP had already shot this beautiful commercial for the Oscars that included Tom, the president of Burger King.

So when the moment happened, and it was time to respond, we didn’t want to invent a joke. We went through the footage and found this real moment of Tom eating a Whopper and posted it. Nothing was staged, he’s really just that guy. He likes Whoppers. And the internet noticed that.

Rachel: What did the numbers look like on that moment?

Mo: 3.3B Impressions. 27M+ Views. 4.5M Engagements. +7.2B Earned Impressions. 3rd highest sales week in Burger King history.

Rachel: Do you have a process for coming up with reactive social media moments? Can you share any frameworks or brainstorming techniques your agency utilizes?

Mo: I think the most important thing is to have a locked brand narrative that you’re trying to convey. And then have a reactive strategy. What kind of stuff do we react to, what do we say, and, most importantly, what kind of stuff do we not react to. We revisit this strategy with our clients often, changing it, shaping it based on which ideas felt true to us and which didn’t. So when the moment comes, everyone in the room is 100% sure of what to reply to and how.

Rachel: I’ve loved how this campaign has taken shape on social media in more sustained ways. For example, docu-style guest videos like this one, which are so wholesome and remind me of what I call “Mister Rogers Marketing“. Can you talk to me about this series?

Mo: Modern marketing is often trying to show you this fantastical reality. But Burger King is real. It’s part of real American families. People have real stories and emotions about this brand. You’ve been to BK with your grandpa, or your daughter, or your high school friend.

And I think people are looking for that. Something real. Something meaningful. And this is as real as it gets. Real guests with real stories about their Burger King. So instead of cinematic scripted series, we decided to shoot it like a local documentary.

Rachel: What’s been cool to see is how product-focused the virality is. I see a viral video, and then on Reddit people are actually sharing the new burger recipe and showing that improvements are being made. How do you think about the overall ecosystem you’re creating on social media? And that some of the most impactful posts aren’t going to even come from the brand account?

Mo: Marketing used to be the art of telling a story to your audience. Now it’s the art of you and your fans creating a story together. The fans told Burger King that the Whopper was often smushed. That’s why, amongst many other improvements, the Whopper now comes in a box. You can’t have that two way conversation without listening.

It’s funny. Every marketing department in the world is in a board room trying to figure out how to get people talking. And the answer is so dumb simple…listen. If you actually listen, your closest fans will tell you what they’re interested in. And then go do that. If you do, they’ll go crazy for you.

Rachel: Let’s go broad. What is the hardest part about working in social media right now?

Mo: I think the most interesting thing is that people are coming at it from these two worlds. The careful, considered, strategized, planned, gun-shy, precious social media world. And then there’s this spray and pray, gamified, quick joke, trigger hungry, almost needy social media world. The best work today has the best parts of both. And there’s just not that many people in the world who think like that. So the hardest part is finding talent.

Rachel: Look into your crystal ball. What does the future of social media look like?

Mo: You don’t have to look into a crystal ball. You can just look at my 14-year-old nephew’s attention habits. It’s YouTube. It’s reading.

In five years that kid is 19. In ten years he’s 24.

So I’d bet on YouTube. Substack. Gaming. More considered. More creative. More craft. And in the world of AI, where everyone is suddenly an artist. The real artists. The real creatives. They’re going to be the ones that will really resonate.

What I’m scrolling

@SpotifyNews rebranded to @ThisIsSpotify. I am intrigued by how these comms-based accounts are pivoting for the entertainment era of social media. More on that in Tuesday’s newsletter.

Comedian Mary Beth Barone is promoting her new comedy special with skits about the marketing for it. It’s part of a growing trend of campaigns that make the marketing…the marketing. Like Timothée Chalamet’s Marty Supreme Zoom call and Charli xcx’s press tour bit to promote The Moment. Now when will a brand make fun of the marketing as marketing?

Instagram forgot to include the best part of their carousel audio update. If you didn’t ever add music in the first place you can now retroactively select a song for your post.

I love Aritzia’s new campaign with Juilliard students. “This season, we’re celebrating our new partnership with The Juilliard School, a world leader in performing arts education. Through this ongoing initiative, we aim to support the next generation of artists and their mission to cultivate excellence, and drive impact through service in the arts.” Very good!

The Miami Heat accidentally posted (then deleted) a scheduled YouTube livestream titled “LeBron James Introductory Press Conference”. I feel bad!

The fake influencers selling wellness on your feed. “The New York Times found hundreds of A.I.-generated doctors, healers and wellness influencers on social media touting the health benefits of supplements to American consumers.” Another stark reminder that just because you’re not getting served AI videos, doesn’t mean they aren’t everywhere on social media right now.

Speaking of AI videos, Meta rolled out a very “optimistic” AI campaign today. I couldn’t help myself and left a comment. Here’s what I wrote: “generative ai images and videos are going to be the reason people leave this platform in droves. we’ll all remember this video when it happens. it causes people to approach all posts (ai or not) with skepticism. they do not believe what they see! that is bad for your business! engagement numbers are not enjoyment numbers. and to be clear, i love instagram and care deeply about the future of it! but i have yet to see ai make the improvements this ad promises.”

There are new roles on the Link in Bio Job Board. Check out the latest from Sphere, Microsoft, and Fielding here.

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If you’re already a paid subscriber, thank you for making this newsletter possible!

In response to my posts about the similarities, 360i clarified what happened.

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Yesterday I spoke at Travel + Leisure’s World’s Best Summit. During my prep for the panel, I went down a deep dive of how hotels and travel companies are using social media. Many felt stuck in the old era. Posts that think they are owed attention instead of trying to earn attention. One photoshoot, rolled out over a month. Reels that are more focused on brand guidelines than entertaining. I always tell clients, what’s the point of demanding your logo be at the beginning of a video if no one sees the post in the first place?

Of course, I came across some great examples too. Like how the Ritz Paris follows the “your brand’s ordinary is your audience’s extraordinary” framework to a tee—creating short vignettes that show the care they pour into each guest experience. Then there’s the content studio helping Tulsa tell its story through serialized videos, taking the “ethos of a PBS show” and applying it to a destination. I recently received a pitch that SkyBeach Resort in St. Petersburg is working on a microdrama.

One great example I shared on the stage is the subject of today’s newsletter. In the lead up to the Norway vs England World Cup game, the Norwegian Air social team extended a bet to the British Airways social team. Publicly. The caption of the post reads, “If Norway wins, you have to switch to our logo on Instagram on Sunday (one day). And vice versa. Deal?🤝.” It racked up 324K likes. What ensued was a friendly airline rivalry that lasted a week and garnered over 25M views. One person wrote that they don’t watch soccer but they “watched this match just to see who won the bet!”

The final post from the stunt is the social team sitting down to do the Netflix documentary trend with “The social media team preparing to tell the story behind the Norwegian x British Airways bet.” Well, today they are telling that story to Link in Bio. Below I talked to Nora Berntzen, Social Media Specialist at Norwegian, about how it all came together.

Rachel Karten: First, can you tell me a little bit about your role at Norwegian?

Nora Berntzen: I’m a Social Media Specialist, which means I work across pretty much everything organic social. I create content, help shape our strategy, and have a particular responsibility for community management. A lot of my day is spent making sure we’re not just posting content, but actually having conversations with people.

Rachel: How would you describe the overall social strategy for Norwegian?

Nora: Norwegian has always been a brand that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and that’s something we try to reflect across our social channels. Of course, there are certain boxes every airline has to tick—destination inspiration, travel tips, aviation content—but we’re also always looking for opportunities to join conversations people are already having. Newsjacking and cultural moments are a big part of how we think about social.

Rachel: Going into the World Cup, what was your plan? And how did it evolve?

Nora: Like any major event, the World Cup sparked a lot of brainstorming. Normally we’d find a fun angle around “fly with us to the cup,” but this year was trickier since we don’t fly to any of the host countries.

That said, Norway had qualified for the World Cup for the first time in 28 years, so we knew we wanted to celebrate that moment. We created a few football-related posts that performed well, but we didn’t have a grand campaign planned.

Rachel: Let’s talk about the British Airways rivalry. Take me into what the planning process looked like for that! Had you talked to their social team before making the initial bet video?

Nora: Calling it a planning process might be generous...It took about 30 minutes from the initial idea to publishing the first post, and British Airways had no idea we were doing it. That was pretty much how we worked throughout the campaign. We reacted quickly, built on whatever happened next, and didn’t overthink it.

An example is our posts with a tiny teacup. My colleague Emilie and I were filming something completely different at Oslo Airport when we realized we should probably create a follow-up to the bet. The only stereotypically British thing I could think of was tea, so we ran into an airport shop, borrowed the fanciest teacup we could find, convinced a cabin crew member to pose with it, and had the whole thing shot within half an hour.

The only content we actually planned in advance was the outcome of the bet. We created both a winning and a losing version beforehand so we could publish immediately after the final whistle.

Rachel: At what point did you get in touch and make it an actual thing?

Nora: British Airways commented on our very first post with a cheeky “Don’t make bets you can’t win 😉,” so we knew they’d seen it, but we still weren’t sure whether they’d actually accept.

We tried reaching them through comments, Instagram DMs, email, and LinkedIn, but they stayed completely silent. Looking back, I think that was a brilliant move because the anticipation just kept growing in the comments. And BA later confirmed that was their strategy.

Rachel: How did this post of the two social teams exchanging logos IRL come together?

Nora: The day before the match, my colleague Emilie flew to London to hopefully hand over our logo on a memory stick at British Airways’ headquarters, without them knowing. We posted about it on Instagram Stories, and British Airways quickly responded, and put a team together to welcome her with open arms. We shook hands with them on camera, and the bet was on!

Rachel: What did the approval process on your team’s end look like for making it happen?

Nora: We checked in with Norwegian’s Marketing Director, who has the final say on anything involving our logo. His response was: What’s the worst thing that could happen? So we went for it.

Rachel: The logo change created such good “stakes” to build audience investment. What did it feel like actually changing your logo?

Nora: Obviously, we were disappointed that Norway lost. But the reaction to the logo swap completely blew us away.

The match finished around 2 a.m. our time, and I stayed up until 4:30 a.m. replying to comments. After four hours of sleep, I woke up to more than 20,000 new comments. I genuinely couldn’t believe it. I basically spent the rest of the day in bed with my phone and laptop, trying to keep up with the conversation.

Rachel: Turning the viral moment into a promotion is really smart. Are you able to share how it performed?

Nora: I am able to say that we were very happy with the performance of the sale.

Rachel: Overall, how did content shared around the World Cup perform for the airline?

Nora: Overall, the World Cup bet became record breaking for us. Across the campaign we generated 25M views, over 1.5M reactions/likes, and 55K comments, while also seeing significant growth in both followers and brand awareness. And you could add even more to these numbers if you combine the results of our other World Cup-themed posts. But I haven’t come that far yet, haha.

Rachel: What did you learn from this stunt? Any advice you’d give brands that want to try something similar?

Nora: I think people have become incredibly good at spotting when brands are genuinely enjoying themselves versus trying too hard to “go viral.” We never set out thinking this would become a global story, we simply had a cheeky idea and committed to it.

As someone who is responsible for community management, I will never underestimate the value of it. But I think many others did before this campaign. The original post might have started it all, but the comments are where the campaign really came to life. Some of the funniest moments weren’t planned or created by us, they happened because we kept responding and building on what the audience gave us. And luckily, the audience had a good sense of humor!

What I’m scrolling

Sprout Social to cut 20% of workforce as AI-fueled tech layoffs continue. According to the Very Online Survey this year, around 30% of social marketers use the tool. Sending support to the ~260 employees who are impacted.

Everyone is talking about Hailey Bieber in this Gap ad, but I am more focused on the voiceover. It’s so good! Commenters are speculating that it’s Chad Michael Murray...

Threads, Meta’s ‘Twitter killer,’ finds its people. Great piece from The New York Times. “The percentage of users who come to Threads independently, and not through promotions on Instagram or Facebook, is increasing, Meta said, without revealing numbers.”

Kathryn Turner, Director of Product Development at M&S Food, has accumulated 7.8M views across 12 videos. I wrote about her first viral video, which now has 1.5M views, back in May. I have never seen an official M&S Food TikTok video on my FYP, meanwhile every new Kathryn video is in my feed waiting for me. It’s a good case study for the type of habitual viewing that can come from “side quest” accounts that have a throughline of familiarity.

Phoebe Bridgers performed on The Tonight Show with a band of children. Reminds me a bit of Maison Margiela’s Spring/Summer 2026 show at Paris Fashion Week where an orchestra of kids performed.

X tweaked their algorithm to show more content from mutuals. The feedback from users is overwhelmingly positive.

I loved Ali Kriegsman’s investigation into how Phia is generating roughly $1M per month on ShopMy. “Does this $1M a month in “no source” revenue on that card reflect something…else? Is it not Phia’s own affiliate activity at all, but instead, ShopMy creators’ redirected commission, recorded on a ledger? And if so, for how long?”

Meta removes controversial AI feature on Instagram after backlash. Good to know that public pressure still works!

Consumers are sick and tired of hearing about AI all the time. “78% of consumers believe AI makes ads ‘feel less authentic’; the same amount said they find brands ‘cringey’ when over-using AI.” Mood.

I am the target audience for this video of a physical therapist breaking down the posture of a Minion.

There are new roles on the Link in Bio Job Board. Check out the latest from Google, No Kid Hungry, and Dove here.

Thanks so much for reading. If you enjoy free interviews like this one, you can upgrade to a paid Link in Bio subscription. You’ll get weekly strategy newsletters and quarterly trend reports, along with access to the Discord community.

If you’re already a paid subscriber, thank you for making this newsletter possible!

This isn’t your usual graphs and stats trend report. Think of this like the scribbled notepad version of the trends you’ll eventually end up seeing in six months. It’s like getting early access. A little bit of science and a lot of gut.

The Brand Social Trend Report: Q2 2026 covers topics like:

• The group chat KPI

• My Meta conspiracy theory

• Social AEO confusion

• Rethinking TikTok

• “Kalshi Hell”

• Creator economy inflation

• Stunt accounts

The report features sharp insights from people like Naleen Camara at Amtrak, Sarah Whittle at Unicorn Social, Yosub Kim at Figma, Zach Schiffman at New York Magazine, Dakota Rae Lowe at Recreation, Carmen Vicente at Slate, Kelly Gordon at Night Ventures, Dejaih Smith at Jeopardy, Andrew Downing at CAVA, and Sydni Myers at National Gallery of Art.

If you’ve been thinking about upgrading your free subscription, this is a good one to do it for. You’ll also get access to the Link in Bio Discord, which has been described as “an essential place to be for anyone managing social media.”

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Today Link in Bio contributor Matthew Stasoff is taking over the newsletter. He is the Group Director, Social Strategy and Creative at Anomaly and has spent the past 10+ years shaping how global brands show up online. He also writes my favorite annual strategy deck Social Signals.

Below Matthew dives deep into the current state of community management. He wonders if brands have over-invested in their outbound commenting strategies, and proposes moving from a “banter” approach to a “hero” approach. I have a feeling many of you will be bookmarking his community management matrix. Let’s get into it.

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The comment section. A place that once felt like the cool place to hangout, now feels more like a high school party the parents keep crashing. Why? Brands, of course. With the constant tension of trying to get attention, brands have made a space for the people just another spot to sell. (I am guilty of it too.) And when you multiply that by the dozens of brands who want to jump into the same conversation you can see how the whole thing gets out of hand. It wasn’t always this way and, I’d say for brands looking to stand out, it’s time to go back to the basics.

How did we get here?

In the early days of social media management the key to success for community management was speed of service. People have problems. How quickly can you solve them? And this wasn’t just for show. There were cases to back up speed of service like this one from Twitter in 2015. People were shown to literally pay more for an airline that helped them in under six minutes.

As social media customer service rose in popularity, scale was required. This led to brands outsourcing these interactions and having them live outside of the day-to-day scope of the community manager.

The role of community management today

Today the role, and the space in general, has evolved. Community managers face new responsibilities such as “outbound commenting”—that act of a brand inserting itself into the comments of content not directly connected to the brand.

A post-AI world has also led to new techniques as brands try to up their social search optimization (SSO), like comment bounties and sponsored comments.

The reaction

It can be tough to decode whether the consumer sentiment of the above strategy is positive or negative. On the one hand, these outbound comments continue to rack up likes and engagement. On the other hand, there’s a growing skepticism bubbling up.

In this video from user @queefqueef_, they say, “Walmart isn’t commenting ‘get that bag sis’ to collaborate with you or send you free stuff. They’re commenting for free advertising, and anytime you as a creator engage with their content, you’re giving them an even bigger platform.” Videos like this and this highlight just how aware people have become of this strategy.

Why do I think this matters? Well last year Forrester’s 2025 Customer Experience Index (CX Index™) revealed that US customer experience quality dropped for the fourth consecutive year, hitting an all-time low average of 68.3 out of 100. Combine that with everything else we know about price sensitivity and the general feeling that products are getting worse, you begin to realize customer service can become the big brand advantage. And to take it a step further, I think there’s a way for brands to turn service into entertainment.

Brand banter → Brand hero

Before looking at where we should go I wanted to lay out the four main areas of modern community management, covering everything from customer service to community building. I’d love brands to look at this and ask themselves: What takes up the most of our time? What costs the most? What benefits our customers and the brand?

Table Stakes = Service with a capital S. Your customers have issues, you’re there to solve them. Everyone knows, keeping an existing customer is significantly cheaper and easier than acquiring a new one. We can’t let this style of community management fall by the wayside in pursuit of entertaining comments.

Example: United has been doing this on Twitter and in DMs for ages.

Banter = Outbound comments. Leaving your owned channels and inserting yourself into conversations that are, for the most part, completely unrelated to your brand.

Example: As mentioned, there is clearly an audience who loves banter when it’s done right (unless there’s a secret SMM group with thousands of members just keeping this comment scheme going 👀). For me doing it right means “creating discussions…and building community with [your] most dedicated fans” as Oatly previously mentioned in their interview with Link in Bio.

Good Times = Surprise and delight moments. This is less about service, and more about inserting your brand into a viral moment. It’s not an existing customer but still exemplifies your brand going above and beyond for someone.

Example: P.F. Chang’s “Cake Delivery” in 2025. 100% unrelated to the brand, but after an outbound comment blew up, the chain went the extra mile to literally deliver cakes to a couple of friends who got in over their heads. I’d argue this is more of a content strategy than a community management strategy.

Hero = Acts with an emphasis on service. These are specifically targeted at actual customers and communicate to the recipient and audiences that the brand will go above and beyond. This is your brand taking customer service from URL to IRL.

Example: The famous North Face Jacket Delivery from 2023. When an unhappy customer posted about their jacket, the brand didn’t just promise to replace it…they had an employee fly it to her in a helicopter. Here are more hero examples from United, Sephora, and Top Golf.

It’s at this point that I want to make clear. A lot of brands are looking for opportunities to get their products into the hands of people with large followings that post about them. This is not what I’m suggesting. Looking to maximize eyes on your product is different from genuinely looking to help an existing customer, despite their following. I actually think brands will serve themselves better by trying to go above and beyond for the everyday customer than another influencer. One hero moment is worth 50 banter moments.

How to implement a brand hero process

Identifying these moments are easy, but how do you create the workflows to deliver on being the hero? For that, I like to put in place three steps:

Vision asks “What do we want to be known for?” It’s not just about excellent service, but identifying moments that connect back to how your brand shows up online. When talking about their helicopter delivery experience, The North Face said “We see our community managers as the digital version of our store guides; helping our customers have a great experience in the outdoors is always our priority.” Can you think of any past moments where your brand could have gone the extra mile to be a brand hero? What would you have done differently?

Process asks “How do we get from idea to execution?” After the famous Stanley Mug fire incident the brand’s President Terence Reilly was asked why most organizations couldn’t respond the way Stanley did within 24 hours. He noted that while it was easy for him to get around red tape as the President, it was an important lesson to all leaders. Which is to say, create a process that minimizes the space between the Community Manager and the person who can say yes.

Permission asks “How are people empowered?” For this I always go back to the Ritz-Carlton’s “Golden Rule” culture. The $2,000 rule at The Ritz-Carlton is a legendary customer service policy that authorizes every single employee, from housekeeping to the front desk, to spend up to $2,000 per guest, per incident, to resolve an issue or create a memorable experience, all without needing managerial approval. Now you may not have $2,000 at your disposal for EVERY customer, but what if you set aside a budget and put it directly into creating those hero moments?

Why it matters

Last year’s 2025 National Customer Rage Study (a real thing) shows customers are feeling an all-time high amount of rage when it comes to customer service. So when it appears a brand cares more about winning in the comments than winning their customers’ loyalty, it’s time for a change.

Brands, people see the lengths you go for influencers. They deserve that treatment too. It doesn’t hurt that in today’s algorithms a customer with 300 followers can get 1M views. So have fun, swing big, and don’t forget helicopter jacket deliveries are only as strong as the scaled customer service that exists behind it.

Thanks so much for reading. If you enjoy free essays like this one, you can upgrade to a paid Link in Bio subscription. You’ll get weekly strategy newsletters and quarterly trend reports, along with access to the Discord community.

If you’re already a paid subscriber, thank you for making this newsletter possible!

Today’s newsletter zooms in on carousels. According to the this year’s Very Online Survey, the format is the type of post performing best for your brand right now. (Yes, even more than short-form video.) I was curious to talk to a brand that has really built their online momentum with the format. I don’t think there’s a better example than the clothing company Nude Project. In 2026 alone, their carousels have garnered over 1M likes, averaging around 25,000 likes per carousel.

I am so excited to share my conversation with the Nude Project’s co-founder and creative director Bruno Casanovas about how the brand thinks about the “rhythm” of a carousel and uses the swipe to “build a more intentional narrative.” If you liked my newsletter about creating a carousel strategy, then I think you’ll really enjoy this interview.

Here’s what’s in today’s newsletter

• How Nude Project creates engaging carousels

• Six types of carousel hooks

• The new TikTok feature I am excited about

• The Minionese singing competition and the role of spectacle in social

• Broadcast Channel takeovers

• Three post formats to try this week

• How to join the Link in Bio Discord

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By now, you’ve probably read the headlines from the annual Cannes Lions International Festival for Creativity. Creators were everywhere. AI was a popular topic. It was hot. I will not be spending much time talking about those things. Instead, I want to share some thoughts on the festival’s relation to social media and why the highlight for me wasn’t found at a fancy beach party but instead in the basement of a convention center.

In partnership with Cannes Lions International Festival for Creativity

I want to take a moment to thank the entire Cannes Lions team for selecting me as an ambassador this year! Link in Bio was born out of the idea of wanting to bring more respect and credibility to the work we do in organic social media. Getting the opportunity to also speak on the *official* programming and present work that essentially preaches that to a room full of execs is a career highlight.

To start, it’s important to make a distinction. There is the Cannes Lions International Festival for Creativity and then there is everything that happens around the Cannes Lions International Festival for Creativity.

The festival is anchored by an awards show paired with official programming of panels, presentations, live judging sessions, and more. Everything that happens around the festival is what you’ve probably seen on Instagram. Yacht parties thrown by ad tech companies called Zip Zap or something. Platforms taking over the entire beach to announce new ways for brands to spend more money with them. Drone shows that spell out “AI” in the sky.

Funny enough, the over-the-top effort from companies trying to get brands to advertise with them had somewhat of the opposite effect on me. It made me even more bullish on the creative work we do in organic social media. The algorithms essentially work like targeting right now—serving up content based on your interests. We’re in a moment where you can have 500 followers and still get 1M views. We know that momentum is built through sharing not boosting. Brave ideas break through. There has never been a better time to invest in organic social media.

I was reminded of this during my presentation at the Cannes Lions B2B Summit with Kendall from Ramp, Ari from Air, and Vin from Creatorbuzz. My favorite slide from Kendall read, “My job is to look for opportunities where creative can provide us with asymmetric upsides. The alpha in doing something weird, wild, and/or creative is that people will share it for free.” She certainly proved that with Ramp’s big stunt with Brian Baumgartner where he processed receipts for over six hours from a livestreamed glass box in the middle of NYC. She shared on the stage that it got 214M views, 4x ROAS, and ~$0 CPM. Kendall’s final point in the presentation was, “You can’t compete with a brand that’s having fun.”

I also loved getting to talk social during the in-between moments of my time in Cannes. I got coffee with Link in Bio reader Candice Beck who is the VP of Brand Engagement at Starbucks. She told me about the brand’s new employee-generated content program with TikTok. They are the first company to pilot a custom Creator Network within TikTok’s Content Suite where they can share briefs and compensate creators through ad revenue sharing. I caught up with Sarah Whittle about going independent during a Yahoo dinner hosted by Emily Sundberg. Mo Said from Mojo Supermarket told me about the agency’s docu-style work with Burger King. The prophecy was fulfilled and I finally met Gary Vaynerchuk. I even happened to fly back to LA next to Erin on Demand. It’s clear organic social teams want to be at Cannes and I hope to see even more official programming dedicated to that work next year.

For me though, the best part of the festival was in a basement. Every year, shortlisted and winning advertising work is displayed underground in the Palais convention center. I spent hours down there, specifically walking up and down the Social & Creator Lions section.

I learned that Gap’s Better in Denim campaign with KATSEYE led to not only 529K TikTok followers in a month but +22% growth in denim sales. I marveled at the Kit Kat heist results, which included that over 155 other brands joined in and created “free KitKat advertising, amplifying the story globally”. (Yes, the chocolate bars were actually stolen and they were awarded a Grand Prix in the PR category for it.) I smirked at Anthropic including a screenshot of a tweet from Sam Altman in their case study. Apple’s Neo rollout with Lil’ Finder Guy on TikTok? 100% organic, 176M views, and the most searched new Mac in history. Oh, and the creative was all done in-house. This Heineken campaign ended up winning the Grand Prix in Social & Creator.

I get asked all the time for agencies that do good social media work, so during one of my multiple laps around I also took note of the groups behind my favorite case studies. VML South Africa worked on this widely-shared Vaseline campaign. BBDO Chicago worked with M&M’s on one of my favorite social videos. CeraVe’s “The New Face of Legs” spot with Kevin Durant was done by OBB BOLDED. Burger King’s “There's A New King And It's You” campaign, which showed up on social with highly engaged videos of the CEO speaking with customers, was done by BarkleyOKRP. Mischief was behind NPR’s curiosity campaign. I made a folder with some of my favorite case studies here, in case you want to read through them.

It’s really easy to get stuck in the whirlwind happening on the ground level of Cannes. Expensive activations to woo brand leaders. The words “authenticity”, “taste”, and “human” thrown around more times than you can count. Creators buzzing about how much money they are making from AI brand deals. But down in the basement, it’s a bit more quiet. Big ideas displayed like a museum exhibition. Clever insights explained with clarity. Hushed conversations with strangers about why something resonated. It made me excited to get back to work.

Thanks so much for reading. If you enjoy free essays like this one, you can upgrade to a paid Link in Bio subscription. You’ll get weekly strategy newsletters and quarterly trend reports, along with access to the Discord community.

If you’re already a paid subscriber, thank you for making this newsletter possible!

A quick note that I’ll be taking next week off. (I am excited to get back to work, but I need a moment to recalibrate.) I’ll be back with the usual Tuesday newsletter on July 7th.

Here’s what I’ve got today:

• Social marketers share the best piece of social media advice they’ve ever received

• Three post formats to try this week

• Why I think Instagram’s next big update is being tested on Threads right now

• Brands are using Reddit to manipulate AI search

• LinkedIn collab posts are coming

• I asked the Guggenheim about this post of them putting Jordyn Woods’ lucky bag in the museum

Read more

The survey was created, run, and analyzed with Mitch Goldstein. All graphics were designed by Bryan Fountain. Paid subscribers can join us in the Link in Bio Discord today to ask us specific questions about the data!

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Platform playbook

In this section we’ll dive into all of the insights around the platforms we post on.

59% of social marketers would choose Instagram if they could only post on one platform for the rest of the year.

Perhaps because change is scary or maybe because the biggest platforms continue to dominate so much of our attention, this is one of the data points that stayed closest to last year’s results. Instagram has the largest majority of responses, with LinkedIn coming in second at 15% and Facebook at 10%. This newsletter has covered before that Facebook continues to be a “sleeper” hit for many brands.

27% of social marketers say that TikTok is the hardest platform to crack.

While that is slightly down from last year’s survey (33%), perhaps more interesting is that a significantly higher percentage of respondents noted that they are having trouble figuring out how to break through on YouTube. Last year, 9% of respondents said that YouTube was the hardest to crack, whereas this year that metric rose to 15%. As you’ll see below, YouTube also rose YoY as a platform respondents consider a “priority”.

Reddit, YouTube Shorts, and Substack rose YoY as platforms social marketers would consider a “priority”.

Like last year, almost 92% of all respondents said that Instagram is a “priority platform” for them. More interesting were the platforms that we saw the largest increases in compared to last year: YouTube Shorts rose 11% since last year’s survey, and while only 8% of social media marketers consider Reddit a priority platform, it’s almost doubled compared to 2025. Substack also grew from 4% to 5% YoY.

We have heard from some marketers that they are being asked to focus on Reddit to try and help increase their brands presence on LLMs like ChatGPT and Claude, with the understanding that many of the "recommendations" those tools give are scraped from Reddit. The rise in YouTube Shorts further solidifies short-form video as a multi-platform format. As many brands continue investing in vertical video, YouTube Shorts is capturing more and more attention alongside standard YouTube formats, and many brands are realizing that the content they’re creating for Reels and TikTok can likely be doing additional work on Shorts as well (much like Senator Warnock’s team’s work on the platform, covered here from earlier this year!) Finally, we’ve seen brands launch on Substack in recent months, like and .

We didn’t track Threads last year so we can’t compare, but we’d venture to guess that would have also increased…

26% of social marketers have launched a new account in the last six months. Of those that launched a new account, the most popular platform was TikTok.

Many noted they were “late”. Right behind was YouTube, YouTube Shorts, and Reddit. It’s likely worth noting that it wasn’t so long ago that there seemed to be a real chance TikTok might actually get banned in the United States. Now that the company’s US arm has been split off, it is possible that more brands decided it was a safer bet to invest resources in.

56% of social marketers said they are moving away from certain platforms. Of those that responded yes, the most common answer was X/Twitter with 32%.

The migration away from the platform formally known as Twitter continues. Those who reported actively leaving the platform mentioned issues around brand safety, moderation, and their audience no longer being active on the platform.

Post performance

In this section we’ll take a look at the post formats and strategies that are driving results.

Like last year, carousels slightly edged out short-form videos as the type of post performing best for your brand right now.

When I spoke with the Instagram team last year, they shared that the two post formats that are most effective for reaching new audiences are Reels and carousels. While I think short-form video is important for growth in today’s algorithm, carousels are the post format with the most visibility opportunities. They show up in the Reels tab if they feature music and also receive multiple ranking chances—slides within your post that your followers didn’t swipe to are sometimes treated as new content and resurfaced on the feed. Another notable stat is that in 2025’s survey, 13% of you said single-image posts were performing best. That number is down to 9% this year.

When I asked “Beyond format, how would you describe the posts that are performing well right now?” there were a few themes that popped up. Behind-the-scenes content that highlights the people and process behind the work. Educational content wrapped up in entertaining ways. Content that is either overtly anti-AI or proves that AI wasn’t used. Serialized concepts and worldbuilding. Tapping into niche subcultures and fandoms. Goofy, humorous memes. One person even shared that they hired a comedy writer to do a workshop with their team which I thought was a genius idea!

Brands are leaning into a “my show is on” mentality.

When asked how the new series is performing, the reviews were mixed. We heard everything from “extremely well” to “middling with brief signs of potential” to “not well”. Many said that it started off strong but then steadily declined. They weren’t able to keep up the momentum. One person said, “First one was great, rest were meh.”

But for those who did see success, they saw a lot of success. I heard anecdotes like “40k followers in 6 months”, “one ep went viral and got us 25K+ followers”, and “90k followers in the span of 2 weeks.” Some of the accounts that have had success mentioned turning an overperforming video into a series. Basically treating a one-off viral video like a pilot and continuing to do the same thing until it’s a “series”.

These are 18 brands with “great social”.

The top mentioned brands were Fishwife, Dunkin, Ffern, Merit, Loewe, PBS, NYC Mayor, National Park Service, Slate, BEÍS, Los Angeles Public Library, Columbus Library, More Perfect Union, Chili’s, Figma, Calm, Brita, and HubSpot. You can see all 438 accounts mentioned here.

We’re starting to lose interest in chasing trends…

19% more respondents were on the “less interested” (responded with a 4 or lower) side of the chart in chasing trends YoY. Anecdotally, it does feel like there are fewer and fewer TikTok audio trends than 2-3 years ago. At the same time, we’re seeing that some of the most successful brands are creating original content that not only performs well but feels more memorable.

When I interviewed Merit’s CMO Aila Morin earlier this year, she shared, “We used to try participating in TikTok trends. My theory though is that why would you even want that to be the content that goes viral? Because it’s probably not the best representation of your brand. And is that what you want people to remember? Not only are we not fast enough for it—nor are we very good at it, to be honest—it’s never really driven anything for us that’s been of value.”

Time, resources, and budget are holding you back from making the content you know would perform.

It’s clear the biggest theme was having the time and bandwidth to make what works. Someone wrote in, “More of my job is *talking about making stuff* rather than *actually making stuff*”. Another person shared, “I just wish we could stop the treadmill for a second to focus on the ‘why’ behind our posts, not just the ‘when’.” Another theme that came up quite a bit was having people willing to be on camera. “Would LOVE to make a serialized content series but we don’t have a ‘video ready’ staff to throw on camera.” A lot of social marketers know that a human face is helpful to grab attention, but are having trouble finding people who want to be that face. Other themes include budget, approval processes, and video skillset.

19% of respondents said they primarily focus on B2B content in their work. 56% of them said they’d choose LinkedIn if they could only post on one platform for the rest of the year.

Here are a few other stats we pulled out about those who work in B2B: 20% of B2B respondents said Instagram is the hardest platform to crack. 73% reported that carousels were the best performing post format. Almost 45% of respondents working on B2B operate as social teams of one. B2B brands like Ramp, HubSpot, and Slate were called out as having “great” social media.

Vibe Check

In this section we’ll cover how social media marketers are feeling right now.

44% of social marketers feel like their boss doesn’t understand social media.

While we heard plenty of stories of supportive teams and bosses who help talent grow and mature, we unfortunately also heard a fair amount of cases where social media teams are still being treated as secondary or afterthoughts to larger marketing initiatives. From either just not “getting it” or understaffing and underresourcing, we heard things like:

• “My job would be easier if leadership had some understanding of social media.”

• “Approvals have to go through our CMO who only cares about aesthetic and not content that actually works to grow accounts.”

• “If leadership doesn’t understand social, but still insists on imprinting on it, you’re doomed.”

59% of social marketers feel like things are better than last year.

In the big picture, overall when we asked on a scale of 1 (Things are worse) to 10 (Things are better) how you feel compared to last year, more social marketers ranked things at an 8 or above. In fact, 62% more people responded with an 8 or higher compared to last year. Our jobs are wild, sometimes stressful, and often chaotic, but they can also be fun, inspiring, and creative.

We did also notice that respondents who said their boss “understands” social media also happened to skew higher on ranking that things overall felt better than last year.

We still need to touch grass.

This is technically down from last year’s average of 7.3 hours, but still. In a profession where we are constantly “professionally logged on”, something we continue to hear from our peers is a want to be able to step away, and why so many of us still swear by devices or apps to lock us out of apps that draw so much of our attention. One person wrote, “I have been so tempted to get one of those Bricks. I’m so close to doing it.”

We are exhausted, overwhelmed, and tired.

Those are the same top three most frequent words from last year. In fact, the words “overwhelmed”, “exhausted”, and “tired” made up 24% of the total answers. Even those who said things were better than last year summarized their overall moods with terms of sheer exhaustion and despair. Some other choice words included “titanic-violins”, “UGHHHHH”, and “cooked”. Not everything was negative though! We also heard “Optimistic”, “Challenged”, and “hungry”.

Final thoughts

As I read through the written answers, there were a lot of ethical concerns about working in social media. Yes, the day-to-day work is challenging but what are the long-term moral implications? One person said, “This job continues to require more and more cognitive dissonance. Not sure how long it will be worth it. But I do it for my team, whom I love.” Another said, “Does my being here, earning a paycheck from this, make me complicit in the societal ills social media contributes to?” One respondent recommended finding a therapist who is at least somewhat online because “it will save a lot of time explaining social media dynamics mid-session”.

With that, also comes questions around if people will even be on social media much longer. One person shared, “I do think that offline is coming sooner than we think. I think social is quickly sinking into ad-infested casino, and user appetites are waning!” Another person said, “I think, as social media managers, we have to recognize that our numbers aren’t going to continue growing forever. The day of social as we know it may be coming to an end. So we have to consider: how do we build community beyond the feed? What does social media look like beyond just these channels?”

I know it’s easy to read through this and feel defeated. I also try to look for the bright spots. 59% of social marketers feel like things are better than last year! As one person noted at the end of their survey responses, “Political issues behind the platforms and AI-generated content make me want to stop working in social media. But brands doubling down on brilliant, episodic content and putting out AI statements gives me hope and weirdly, when the content is good, I love my job more than ever. That tension has been draining.” I agree. It’s a hard, fun, exhausting, exhilarating, demanding, weird, silly, rewarding job. I’m grateful to get to figure it out with all of you.

This is just the first send of many using the data from this survey. More soon on the best advice you’ve ever received, how AI is impacting your role, and the tools that make you better at your job. Until then, if you have any questions about the results we’ve shared so far, please don’t hesitate to reach out and ask!

The magic is in the tension of putting overwhelming amounts of effort into what are ultimately low stakes ideas. I learned that they hired NASA engineers to help make a Rube Goldberg machine and created the first video to be shot entirely in zero gravity. In an interview, the lead singer Damian Kulash said, “Really ambitious projects all boil down to the same human urge — that speculative, audacious ball of wonder and curiosity that makes us want to go find the edge of what’s possible.” In a time where we’re being sold a future where AI makes everything is possible, I think people are craving content that pushes up against that. Posts that make you comment “AI could never”.

Here’s what’s in today’s newsletter:

• I talked to RJ Bruni, the director behind some of my favorite social videos, about treating campaigns like short films

• My theory about horizontal videos on Instagram

• Four post formats to try this week

• The food brand that has garnered 100M views in the past 15 days

• What to know about New York’s new AI disclosure legislation

Read more

I called up Lucas in Paris to talk about what most luxury brands get wrong about social media, why he’s grateful for the auto-scroll feature on TikTok, and the importance of gaining internal trust. I hope you enjoy our chat.

Sponsored by Oatly

What I learned about social media at Oatly’s big beverage summit

Last week, I spoke at Aftertaste, a summit from Oatly that explored the intersection of beverage and culture. There was a matcha water fountain! Would you expect anything less from the oat milk brand that calls their internal creative team “The Department of Mind Control”? The best part was that I got to interview The Nitro Bar star (and co-founder) Audrey Finocchiaro. Here are a few of my favorite takeaways from our conversation:

• Creating recurring formats like asking their baristas “What’s the weirdest drink someone has ever ordered?” or “What was the most popular order this weekend?” has allowed the coffee shop to not only build viewership but also retain a dedicated audience. “My show is on” mentality.

• One of Audrey’s biggest social media tips? Multitask while talking to make a video more interesting. That might mean pouring ice in a shaker or walking around. Those actions hook viewers.

• Trends don’t dictate their menu. It has to taste great, first and foremost. The most popular latte they’ve ever sold (and still sell!) is their caramelized banana latte.

I loved getting to chat with Audrey and hear from other speakers about the state of beverage. Thanks to the Oatly team for having me!

Lucas Yiu on advocating for big ideas, marketing that feels real, and having a daily average screen time of 12 hours

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Rachel Karten: How did you get your start in fashion social?

Lucas Yiu: I’m from Hong Kong and moved to Paris seven years ago. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do in fashion but I knew the brands that I liked: Jean Paul Gaultier or Thierry Mugler. I went on LinkedIn and looked up every single person who worked at those places. Eventually the Communications Director at Thierry Mugler said to come to the office to chat. I was later offered a job working in social media and influencer.

Rachel: And this was right around the time that TikTok was becoming mainstream?

Lucas: Five years ago TikTok was quite new for the industry, most of the brands were not on the platform. But it was my job to get to know the different platforms and I found myself really using it. It felt super unique in terms of the style of content and sense of community. I started working on a strategy for it.

At that time, I couldn’t really benchmark other fashion brands since they weren’t on it, so I looked to Duolingo and accounts outside of fashion. I know it sounds common now, but it really was taboo for the luxury industry to be sharing iPhone videos at that time. The brand spent millions of dollars on a shoot for these polished assets, why would you post something filmed on an iPhone? When I suggested that everyone looked at me like I was crazy. But I found that audiences were just so tired and saturated with polished marketing content. That edit that I eventually got approved had something like 40M organic views. The company was like, “Maybe there’s something to this.”

Rachel: That’s always the challenge of working in social media.

Lucas: The most challenging thing about my work is never the idea or execution. It’s always the internal conversations and convincing people to approve something. Sometimes a post is just a vibe and not about a specific strategy. It’s about culture, it’s about feeling, it’s about sense.

Rachel: And after Mugler you started working at Loewe?

Lucas: Yes, I think they were wanting to invest more in their social media. A similar thing happened early on with needing to fight for the content. When we received one of the first posts that I had worked on from a creator, the feedback was essentially like “We love this, it’s funny, but it’s too much. We are not putting it on our page.” I felt so close. I knew it would go viral. I needed them to trust me. So late at night in the office, I talked to my boss and eventually convinced him. I think it got something like 30M views.

In the beginning there were a lot of sign offs and approvals, but eventually I was able to gain their trust.

Rachel: I always say that being good at social media is also learning how to explain low-stakes ideas with high intelligence. Learning to have that confidence is a skill.

Lucas: Exactly.

Rachel: I’d describe Loewe’s social media strategy as extremely online. Are you extremely online?

Lucas: My daily average screen time is around 12 hours. I am so thankful for the auto-scroll function on TikTok. My phone is just basically scrolling all the time, no matter if I’m showering or doing laundry.

Rachel: How were you deciding the creators to work with?

Lucas: It really is just a vibe. There are many creators where we’ll be like “Yeah, this is funny, but it’s not exactly the sense of humor we are targeting.” We often have a lot of discussion in the office whether certain ideas feel right. The truth is, during this process there is a lot of content being killed.

Rachel: You recently started your own consultancy. I’m curious, when brands approach you, what are they usually looking for on social media?

Lucas: Most of them are looking for social content that essentially makes the brand feel more alive. Not just traditional marketing content. They are usually familiar with my previous work and sort of understand what I bring to the table.

I would also say I have to be quite selective with my clients, because sometimes it costs you a lot more to work with a client that doesn’t get it. Most of the people who find me, they actually get it. If they didn’t get it, they probably wouldn’t notice my work in the first place.

Rachel: What do you think luxury brands get wrong about social media?

Lucas: I think a lot of brands are struggling between heritage and social. They want to preserve their image but also understand they need to be on social media, which is a bit more organic and relatable. I’m not saying that they need to do all of their campaigns on an iPhone, but I think when you’re spending that much budget and storytelling on a campaign message, you need to help the audience get there. Use social like a stepping stone.

Something I’ve noticed is that social posts from fashion press and media often perform better than the fashion brand posts. That’s because press and media understand how to capture attention online. Meanwhile the brand is putting their logo in the first three seconds of a video.

What’s the point of having a great beautiful campaign but no one is even seeing it?

Rachel: Look in your crystal ball, what do you think the future of social media looks like?

Lucas: Audiences want marketing to feel real. They don’t want it to be staged or polished. Craft is still super important, but finding ways to show it in a more organic way. More brands will include fun in their social strategies.

What I’m scrolling

GQ’s clip of A$AP Rocky saying “I ain’t no Knicks fan, I am a Knick” has 5M views. I asked Sasha Mutchnik, GQ’s Senior Director of Social Media, about the on-the-ground reporting she’s been doing. She shared, “For me, personally, the best work happens outside. When there’s something big and amorphous and chaotic, my instinct is always to just hone in on individual stories. They’ll help get to the granular details, they’ll make things personal. No one knows how to process a mob. But a mob is made up of people, and some of those people are great on camera.”

Harris Alterman and Dave Ross put up fake tech ads in the subway. 2.3M views!

Internal LinkedIn docs reveal the new features it’s cooking up. Business Insider viewed internal strategy documents and shared, “[LinkedIn] plans to roll out a dealmaking marketplace to connect creators with brands for sponsored posts. It’s also working on a new system that lets users make one-time purchases to buy ‘experiences’ from creators, like a paid advice session.”

I spoke with Ed Elson about the influencer economy. My take is that line culture has always existed. I waited an hour for Cronuts in 2013! Time is a circle!

I feel like we’re going to see brands hire sketch artists to document their events. Adam Faze shared his post here, then a NY Tech Week party did it here.

J.Crew hosting a camp-themed brand trip immediately after rolling out their camp-themed campaign is very smart. It’s a good example of Matthew Stasoff’s point about building multiple on-ramps to bring people into a campaign’s world.

Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri announced they are bringing the Your Algorithm feature to the main feed. Users can essentially tweak the topics they want recommended. The feature is marketed as a way to bring back more “agency” to your scroll, but I’m not sure if users really appreciate a “solution” to a problem that they perceive Instagram as the creator of. He also said modifying topics is just the start and they are “actively working on supporting requests for people, different moods or vibes, content types, and more.”

Brands are participating in the viral food jutsu trend. Figma here and Costco here. Want to try it? Here’s a tutorial.

YouTube has surpassed Netflix in viewership. Lucas Shaw recently reported this in his newsletter Screentime. YouTube’s most active users are between the ages of 18 and 24.

Your brand should hire Mrs Waffle to make a jingle for you. I am partial to this “aru-gala” video.

There are new roles added every day to the Link in Bio Job Board. Check out the latest from Sephora, Google, and Air here.

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