In a recent essay, I wrote about how participation is the biggest sign that something is breaking through. I know there’s momentum when content is being made in comment sections and on personal accounts. Content about the content. Obsession (and the marketing behind it) understood this well. Billboards that made you want to snap a photo. Products that made you want to share a review online. A theater experience that made you want to post a “before” and “after”. And, of course, success that made people want to theorize the mechanics behind it. That’s good marketing too.

Instead of contributing to the influx of assumptions, I figured I’d go straight to the source. I reached out to Focus Features to learn more about the marketing strategy for Obsession and what the collaboration with filmmaker Curry Barker looked like.

Below Jason Cassidy, vice chairman of Focus Features, talks about the role FOMO plays in movie marketing, how to get people in theaters, and why it’s important to let fans take ownership.

Rachel Karten: First, congratulations on the success of Obsession. I am curious to hear about the first time you watched the movie. What was your reaction? What marketing opportunities did you immediately see?

Jason Cassidy: Thank you! It’s been an incredible ride, and we’re thrilled for Curry and the entire team. Like everyone around the world, the first time we saw the film, we were literally obsessed.

From a marketing perspective, the film was our greatest asset and had a great relatable hook with a fresh take on the idea of “be careful what you wish for.”

When we sat down with Curry to talk about the campaign we talked about everything from teasers to popcorn tins and, perhaps most importantly, bringing the now-infamous One Wish Willow to life as a real product that fans could actually own.

RK: You created a lot of intrigue early on by selling the One Wish Willow and putting up an interactive billboard. It was really smart. Marketing a horror movie can be difficult because you don’t want to give away too much. How did you approach building excitement leading up to the release?

JC: One of the things that made Obsession such a gift from a marketing perspective was how much in-world material with which we had to work with. From day one, the goal was to make audiences feel like they were stepping into Curry Barker’s nightmare vision before they ever bought a ticket.

That’s where ideas like the billboards, the text line, and the One Wish Willow really came alive. Nikki is such a compelling character that we knew people would want to engage with her. The text line, in particular, allowed us to extend the experience beyond the screen and create an ongoing relationship between Nikki and the audience. She could remind them to buy tickets, follow her on Letterboxd, listen to her Spotify playlists, and, of course, tell them how much she missed or loved them. It transformed marketing from a message into an experience.

RK: Curry Barker and his YouTube channel that’s a bad idea both have large, dedicated social media followings with strong instincts on how to promote their own work. How did you involve them in the marketing strategy?

JC: Curry was a true collaborator from the very beginning, and his fans were top of mind throughout the campaign, as were the Blumhouse, Focus Insiders, and That’s a Bad Idea fans.

We talked from the onset about giving out bite sized nuggets of material that didn’t give much away and made the audience lean in. At our inaugural FocusFest we hosted a midnight special screening of Obsession that Curry introduced and his fans turned out in droves for. We also quickly put a teaser trailer on Blumhouse’s Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 to tap into that existing audience.

The key was making sure every touchpoint felt authentic. Audiences are too smart and know when they are being marketed to.

RK: I loved this video in the lead up. It reminded me of the Paranormal Activity ads, which really sold the theater experience. I’ve been thinking a lot about how movie marketing might need to look different than movie theater marketing. Marketing that makes you actually want to see something on a big screen, surrounded by other people. How do you think about using marketing to actually drive theater attendance?

JC: Eventize, eventize, eventize. In today’s world, we’re competing with everyone’s phones and couches, so it’s essential to deliver a theatrical experience they feel like they absolutely can’t miss.

RK: Opening weekend was all over my feed. Videos showing someone throwing up in the theater (good marketing for a horror movie!) and amazing Twitter reviews. It’s the type of word-of-mouth marketing you can’t manufacture. Were you surprised by that momentum? How did you build on it?

JC: As blown away as we were when we first saw the film, we were thrilled to see audiences respond as passionately as we did and the amazing critical response with an outstanding 96% on Rotten Tomatoes helped propel the momentum. It has been so wild to watch the film defy the natural laws of box office week after week.

Leading up to opening, we worked to create as many shareable moments as possible because today’s audiences are incredibly savvy. They want to feel like they are in on “it,” and have a sense of ownership. From Nikki’s handwritten sticky notes placed on theater bathroom mirrors to One Wish Willow vending machines popping up in lobbies, every activation was meant to pull audiences deeper into the world of the film.

The most exciting part was watching fans take ownership of the movie and give it a life of its own outside of the theater. We started seeing “One Wish Willow Gone Wrong” TikToks, fan and nail art, memes and more explode online in a way we never imagined. The best viral moments can’t be manufactured; they happen when people genuinely connect with the material.

RK: Ticket sales increased 39% in weekend two. Everyone on social media is posting their theories about why. What do you attribute it to?

JC: It comes down to three things: Obsession is a genuinely great film, has incredible word-of-mouth, and there is a very real sense of FOMO around it. Once a movie becomes part of the cultural conversation, people want to see for themselves what everyone is talking about.

When audiences have a great experience, they don’t just tell their friends to go see it, they bring them back to the theater and watch them experience it for themselves, turning it into an unmissable event. Curry’s fans, Blumhouse’s fans, and horror fans certainly added fuel to that fire.

RK: What should marketers take away from the massive success of Obsession?

JC: The biggest takeaway is engaging fans with authentic, memorable, and sharable moments every step of the way that gives audiences something to own, helping the film cut through and become part of the culture. And lucky for us, audiences are Obsessed.

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 Stripe, Apple, Graza, 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. You can find it 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!

Speaking of, I just went through the responses to the question, “In one word, how would you describe the general sentiment among your social team right now?” The top three words were overwhelmed, tired, and exhausted—which happen to be the exact same three most-mentioned words from last year’s survey. Yikes. Full report coming soon.

Today’s newsletter features fascinating YouTube insights from Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock’s team. At the beginning of the year, the Senator’s YouTube was averaging around 7K views per month. Today it’s averaging 1M. The advice is relevant for politicians, brands, and anyone curious about how to grow on YouTube right now.

Here’s what’s inside today’s newsletter:

• Tips for growing on YouTube

• The type of creator more brands should partner with

• MERIT’s CMO on why they launched a Substack

• Four post formats to try this week

• Should your brand purchase Instagram Plus?

Read more

What’s left unsaid leaves room for people to imagine. To superimpose themselves into the story. To build layers of lore. That way, by the time Backrooms reaches me—which it only did a few months ago—I have textbooks worth of knowledge to catch up on. Now I’m in their world too. Mystery is the best marketing.

“People want to be at the start of something. That’s our urge to be a part of the meta-narrative.”

I often get asked what it means to break through in culture. We used to look to views. Now, I’d argue it’s participation. When I study the most-watched videos on TikTok every month, I’m always surprised at how few actually broke through culturally. I know something is resonating today when the more interesting content is being made in comments sections and on personal accounts. Content about the content. The “red flats queen” video from the Met Gala isn’t what made the moment break through. It was the speculation. Who is she? Where does she work? What’s going on?

In a conversation with Colin and Samir, creator Anthony Po talked about how the most crucial piece of his stunt accounts like Cheeseball Man and John Chungus is to start it from scratch on a new page. He says, “People want to be at the start of something. That’s our urge to be a part of the meta-narrative.” That urge fuels participation. Anthony knew John Chungus had momentum not when the views went up, but when fan edits rolled in.

That part about being “at the start of something” is important. There’s social currency to telling your friend about a funny video before their own algorithm does. It’s getting harder and harder to do. A few days ago I came across a brilliant Reel titled Anatomy of a Sheep. It had only 1,000 likes and the creator had less than 2,000 followers. I got the same feeling as when I was a teen and first heard a Coconut Records song or watched Blue Velvet. That euphoria of personal discovery that makes you want to fall down a wormhole into fandom. I thought I was at the start of it. The next day the video had 100K likes.

In a recent article by in Vogue Business, she writes, “As artificial intelligence accelerates replication, influencer culture reaches saturation, and global crisis seeps into the consumer consciousness, the industry’s reliance on scale as a proxy for value is losing traction.” She goes on to say, “This increasingly means brands trading spectacle for something harder to manufacture: meaning and connection, built through human relationships and stories that feel grounded in lived experience rather than engineered for scale.”

Amy talks about how luxury fashion brands are tapping into their own history as meta-narratives. Simon Porte Jacquemus naming his grandmother as the brand’s first ambassador and Jonathan Anderson inviting Paulette Boncoure, an atelier artisan who started working at Dior in 1947, to the show. The post sharing the video of Paulette arriving has over 50K likes.

Denny’s case study

13 years ago, a video of the band Live Without performing inside a Denny’s got 5.3M views on YouTube. A phrase from it—“What the fuck is up, Denny’s?!”—stuck. The conversation around it stayed active in the years since, with accounts celebrating its anniversary and multiple Reddit threads.

Last week, Denny’s finally collaborated with the the band. The video has 3M views across platforms. A wink at the existing fandom, an invitation for a new one.

I had never seen the original video. But the web of super fans who were excited about the collab reverberated across the internet and right into my feed. I went down that same deep dive I did for Backrooms. Now I’m in their world too.

Below I spoke to the Sam Ellis, Head of Social at Denny’s, about the decision to finally lean in and why he trusted the audience would get it.

Rachel Karten: Can you take me into the early stages of the idea? Why was now the right time for Denny’s to reference this viral video?

Sam Ellis: I joined Denny’s just over a year ago and my first question was: “Why haven’t we reengaged the WTF moment?”

Doing what you do, you probably remember Denny’s was one of the first brands to really embrace social media in a distinctive way (our Tumblr era, as it were) and, over the past year or so, we’ve been intentionally reconnecting with that DNA and leaning back into a more social-first approach to marketing.

That approach is spearheaded by one simple idea: people want entertainment, not ads. And what’s more entertaining than “What the F#$@ is up, Denny’s?” So, once we solidified that strategy, we picked up the phone, called the band, and the rest is history.

Rachel: Were you at all worried about people recognizing the reference? I like how the teaser served as a reminder.

Sam: I think we trusted the nature of social media on this one. Every time we’ve even nodded to this moment it’s done big numbers on social so we felt confident if we teed this up correctly, the algorithm would do its thing and make sure it was put in front of the fans with whom it would resonate most.

Still, to your point, we’re always wary of being too “inside baseball” and needed to ensure even those with a vague awareness were brought along for the ride. So the teaser, including the original clip in the first few seconds of the video, etc.—those pieces were super critical.

Rachel: I loved the announcement video. Can you share some of the creative decisions made when creating it? For example, I thought it was smart to show the original video in YouTube UI up top to really bring people in.

Sam: First, I have to give credit to our director Matt Zolly because we charged him with a tough task—revive this moment in a fun interesting way while incorporating a product without over-commercializing it. Like I said, people want entertainment, not ads, but especially given this audience and the respect they deserve, we had to be mindful to not turn it into a whole corporate branded thing. Certainly, we’re always trying to sell more burgers and pancakes but that was far from our primary goal here.

Matt absolutely nailed that balance and was also super collaborative and open to ideas. As for creative decisions, including the original clip in the first few seconds was a brand-side note but the food fight was all Zolly! The burger-to-the-face shot is currently my phone background.

Rachel: Are you able to share any numbers that point to the success?

Sam: Absolutely. Statistically, this has already been our most successful social campaign of all time, with nearly 10M social impressions, a million engagements, and an Engagement Rate of 13.16% in the first few days alone.

For comparison, on Instagram the flagship video currently sits at 547K engagements, making it our most successful Instagram post of all time (paid or organic). Second place has 216K engagements.

And my favorite part—this was entirely organic. Not a single dollar of media weight.

Rachel: Link in Bio contributor Matthew Stasoff quote tweeted the video with “explore your lore”. Do you think more brands should explore their lore?

Sam: We’re proud of this campaign. We worked hard and feel it’s a tremendous accomplishment. But at the same time, this was a gift from the zeitgeist. How many brands have a moment like this woven into their history? Something culture decided was cool and interesting about you and you didn’t even have to buy it or ask for it. When something like that gets dropped in your lap, doing something about it shouldn’t be optional. You just have to do it right. So yes, brands should absolutely explore their lore. Find what people already dig about you and find a way to amplify it in an interesting, unexpected way.

Mystery requires trust

As I was writing this, the musician Role Model created an account called Chuck Timely. A new alter ego unlocked. It is on that account, not his main one with 1.2M followers, that he teased his new single. The stunt has resulted in Reddit threads asking for “theories” on it, TikTok merch unboxings, and easter egg comment sections. What was left unsaid was immediately filled in by his audience. That’s how momentum is built on social now.

Creating mystery requires trust. Trusting that your audience will “get it”. Unfortunately, many brands optimize themselves out of that. They give away the product in the teaser. Use the ending as a hook. Over-explain the concept. It’s why we get Super Bowl commercials with press releases one month before the game.

In a recent interview, Obsession director-writer Curry Baker said, “YouTube taught me that a modern horror audience is really smart. I would do [my YouTube short films] and cross my fingers and hope people pick up on these small things, and you bet they’ll pick up on things you didn’t even intend. You learn that people are actually very smart, so let’s not treat them like they’re dumb.”

It’s good advice for horror directors. It’s good advice for brands. Approach your social media strategy with an assumption that your audience is intelligent. The rest will follow.

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!

Finally, there are new roles added every day to the Link in Bio Job Board. Check out the latest from Dôen, Sonos, and Raising Cane's here.

In today’s newsletter I am checking back in with Little Joy, a small coffee shop in Northfield, MN that has built a dedicated following through a serialized approach to social media. I first spoke to the shop’s owner Cody Larson almost a year ago, which I covered in this newsletter. I often reference this quote from it: “Social media is replacing television. And just like in television, there’s the shows you tune-in to watch and there’s the commercials you suffer through. Stop making commercials. Be the show.”

It’s a conversation that has really stuck with me, so I was delighted to see the coffee shop making headlines recently for posting a video (4M views!) giving away the recipe for their raspberry danish latte. It resulted in over 600 coffee shops around the world serving it too. I wanted to catch up with Cody to see how things were going since we last spoke. Below we talk about the raspberry danish moment, posting less but getting more reach, and turning negative comments into content.

Here’s what else is inside:

• Thoughts on a “less is more but harder” philosophy

• The legality of clipping

• Three post formats to try this week

• Why brands are using ShopMy for product development

• The creative agency making some of my favorite social videos right now

Read more

Below Matthew explores campaign on-ramps, one of my favorite frameworks from the 2025 Social Signals deck. It centers around an important tension: social media algorithms no longer show posts “in order”, so why do we still roll out campaigns as if they do? Matthew’s solution is on-ramps. Think of them like chronology-agnostic tactics that bring people into a campaign. Below Matthew shares more on how to create on-ramps and walks us through a stellar case study from the golf brand Malbon.

The chronological campaign framework

Advertising has always been defined by storytelling. Crafting a memorable campaign that doesn’t just stick with someone, but reshapes how they look at the brand and sometimes even the world.

It’s natural then that storytelling would beget a campaign framework that follows suit in the same linear way. A defined beginning (tease), a middle (announce), and end (sustain).

The truth is, with the way algorithms work now, the majority of people aren’t going to see the orchestrated content plan you put together. No matter how damn good it is. That’s because the flow of information has lost all sense of time. It’s why you’ll see a comment on a creator’s post like “anyone else come to part 1 after seeing part 12?”

Algorithms disrupted timelines

Algorithms have collapsed time, prioritizing relevance over post date. The below image, adapted from creator @Mike_Sunday, highlights how people might experience your campaign now.

It’s why putting together your brand’s rollout for the next campaign is important but also fruitless to some degree.

A fun exercise could become: Make your rollout deck and then shuffle it. What do you see first? Is it enticing? Does it make you want to see more? If it leaves you feeling nothing, perhaps it doesn’t belong.

Why your campaign needs more on-ramps

What excites me about this truth is how it forces me to dive deeper into the core idea to explore new ways of bringing a campaign to life. To effectively look past the storytelling, and consider on-ramps. Think of them like chronology-agnostic tactics that bring people in.

Below is what the traditional campaign storytelling arc might look like with more on-ramps. The goal of these tactics are to ultimately increase your campaign’s surface area online.

Stories consider a protagonist. On-ramps consider multiple characters.

Stories have an arc and an ending. On-ramps go on FOR-EV-ER.

Stories require context. On-ramps understand a piece of content 10 days into the campaign might be someone’s first exposure.

Case Study: Malbon Home

During The Masters in April, golf clothing brand Malbon created Malbon Home. A place for their community to gather, programmed with activities throughout the week. Connor Smith, brand marketer at Malbon, wrote, “We heard it over and over, people who never get a seat at the Masters found one here. For a week, they felt like they belonged.”

So how did they roll it out on social? By creating lots of on-ramps.

Malbon launched a dedicated account, @malbonhome, for the experience. It’s an on-ramp to the hero brand @malbon as well as an intriguing distinction for existing and new audiences. According to Smith, they took the Malbon Home Instagram from 0 to 15K followers in just five days. They posted around 300 pieces of content and garnered 7M organic views.

The brand worked with Creative Director Alex Garcia, a creator with 185K followers, on the campaign. Not only was he deeply involved behind the scenes, but he also provided a megaphone for all the thinking through explainer posts, BTS, and more.

The brand set up multiple “sets” throughout the home so that they could capture standalone “series”. One set allowed them to capture their Letters from Augusta series. They filmed 25 “episodes” in one day. Here’s Alex explaining how they operationalized that.

Founder Stephen Malbon (97K followers) recorded his popular Par 3 Podcast live from the home. Clips from the podcast were disseminated on Instagram.

The brand flew influencers like Mister Mort out for it. They made a video about the “making of” the experience. There were giveaways throughout. It goes on and on and on. Importantly, no matter where you might have been dropped into the campaign, you’d be intrigued to see more.

The new content ecosystem

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.

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 The New York Times, Disney, Rivian, Tower 28, FIGS, 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. Check it out here!

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!

In a survey last year, I asked “What is one brand account you think exemplifies great social?”. The result was a fascinating document with over 300 accounts.

I wondered how the list might shift year-over-year, so I asked the question again in this year’s Very Online Survey. I just closed the survey on Friday, but was so curious about the changes that I spent the weekend organizing and sorting the responses.

Below you’ll find a link to the list of the 438 accounts mentioned. I also pulled out some of the most interesting data points. Like the brand that unseated Duolingo for the most mentions. The politician who made it into the top 10. The B2B brands that multiple respondents called out. The surprising role Threads played.

Here’s what’s in today’s newsletter:

• Brands with great social, according to you

• A document with all of the responses, that you can sort by industry

• Three post formats to try this week

• Plus the clothing brand helping fund a documentary, my thoughts on Instants, what it’s like doing social media for a fruit, and more

Read more

The result of that tension—a brand going against expected industry norms—leads to moments of delight. Oftentimes, it’s that feeling people are reacting to when they say they love a brand’s social media.

Loewe’s tension is a high-end luxury brand partnering with extremely online content creators. Ramp’s tension is a serious B2B fintech company consistently pulling off wacky stunts. Ben & Jerry’s tension is a playful ice cream company speaking out against injustice. The Los Angeles Public Library’s tension is a 150-year-old institution making thorough Charli XCX explainers. It’s not that these tactics are entirely new, it’s that these brands are showing up in a way that no one has seen in the context of their industries.

A few months ago, I stumbled upon a video from the Milwaukee Brewers celebrating opening weekend. Instead of the hype up edit I expected, it felt closer to an old Hollywood movie. It immediately caught my attention. On Twitter, the team’s video editor pointed out that the title card of the video was inspired by the 1953 movie Roman Holiday starring Audrey Hepburn. While I have certainly noticed more brands sharing cinematic videos on social media, it’s an approach that feels novel in the world of baseball.

The opening weekend video sent me down a deep dive, which eventually led me to Ezra Siegel. He’s in charge of the social media strategy for the Milwaukee Brewers—including live coverage of up to 162 games every year. I sent him an email and next thing I knew we were talking about “arthouse baseball” and why he wants to make content sports fans have never seen before.

How the Milwaukee Brewers approach social media

To understand why a baseball team is inspired by arthouse cinema, it’s important to understand the grounding strategy. When I ask Ezra for his social media philosophy, he tells me, “When people consume our content, I want them to feel like they’re seeing something fresh, not just a take on something they’ve seen from the other accounts and teams they follow. We want to be the model that other teams look at for inspiration, rather than the other way around.”

There’s a clear competitiveness in the way Ezra talks about the team’s social media strategy. How can the team also win on the digital field? “I want people to wonder how the small-market Milwaukee Brewers put out content that nobody has seen before in a sports context. I want us to be pacing with the teams from New York, Los Angeles, Chicago etc—the teams with more resources, more star power, larger audiences—in terms of social performance. Which we can and do measure!”

For the 2025 baseball season, social measurement tool Zoomph created a report that adjusted data based on a team’s following on social media, normalizing data across audience sizes (which can be impacted by market, history, age, etc.) to evaluate and compare how effectively team content performed. The Brewers had the best social performance relative to the size of their audience. Ezra told me, “The Brewers have been very successful on the field while operating differently than the rest, and I think it’s fun to try to mirror that from a marketing point of view.”

“Arthouse baseball”

In a recent interview with Sports Business Journal, Ezra described the Brewers strategy as “arthouse baseball”. When I asked him to expand on that idea further, he said, “The way I’ve defined ‘Arthouse Baseball’ is showcasing our sport and athletes in experimental, innovative, and unconventional ways for enhanced entertainment value—particularly in our video content.” He credits Carter Green, the team’s Senior Videographer and Creative Lead, as being instrumental in pioneering this style.

Most MLB and sports teams execute content in ways that meets fan expectations, Ezra wants to upend fan expectations. He says their “arthouse” approach “tries to break the mold with unique and innovative video content that baseball fans have not seen before.” It’s clear through the editing, music, angles, and color-grading that the team is pulling references that few sports teams have before. The only other team that has tried a similar style (that comes to mind for me) is the Celtics, with videos like this.

Alongside Carter, the Brewers have a robust video production team who Ezra describes as “well-read” in terms of film knowledge and appreciation. When I ask for some references that have inspired the team, he had a long list at the ready. “Carter created a great series of atmospheric content using the classical song ‘The Blue Danube’, which was inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. We’ve also had several nods to Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, using the song ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ for competitive edits on the road. Some other notable references include Hundreds of Beavers, The Brutalist (Carter recreated the upside down Statue of Liberty shot at Dodgers Stadium), Pulp Fiction’s title cards, and A24’s trailer style.”

Importantly, taking cues from cinema in content allows more fans into the world of baseball. It opens up the game in a new way. “We are constantly looking for and thinking about ways to reach new fans and audiences, and our approach is meant to showcase baseball in a way that anyone—not just Brewers fans—can look at and say ‘damn that is cool,’” he says.

Behind the post

Below I asked Ezra to give me some insight into how some of my favorite Brewers videos came together.

---

Video: Ode to bunts
Views: 1.3M
Likes: 50K
Ezra’s POV: Baseball is such a unique sport. It has so much tradition and history. It can at times be unbelievably intense and stressful when the stakes are high. But most of the year it is often more of a social activity for the casual fan or someone looking to spend a nice summer day outside. The bunt video is a great example of how wacky games can play out and how, despite a 162-game season, you will see new things all the time on the field. I think people sometimes mislabel baseball as “boring” or “repetitive”, but I don’t think that’s the case at all if you know what to watch for.

---

Video: Grand Theft Auto riff
Views: 1.7M
Likes: 59.9K
Ezra’s POV: This was the brainchild of my peer and friend Carter Green. Our team met regularly throughout the offseason leading up to spring training to brainstorm content ideas for that time of year, which is when we get the most time with and access to our athletes. When Carter brought this idea to me, it was a no brainer to invest in it as our top priority for spring training content. As Carter says, it’s essentially a “day in the life” video, which has been done countless times by sports brands, but putting a new twist on it that people wouldn’t expect. The Grand Theft Auto/video game theme is a great example of our approach to reach fans beyond our audience. We figured it would be a fun, novel video for anyone who is a fan of baseball OR video games, and we looked at it as a perfect blend of baseball and widely accessible culture. As far as actual production, Carter followed around Sal Frelick with a 360 camera for a day of practice before spending dozens of hours editing and adding motion graphics to it. Just an example of how lucky I am to work with people like him…I love empowering their creativity and helping bring their ideas and talent to life!

The lineup

What does the team look like that brings this strategy to life? Ezra shared that their content operation consists of a three-person social team, a seven-person video production team, and a three-person graphic design team. As far as his own role, Ezra says it varies. “Many times my role is to direct or execute creative myself, other times I feel more like a studio head green-lighting different ideas or projects that people bring to me.”

Throughout our conversation I noticed how much Ezra really wants to make sure his team gets the credit they deserve. “In particular, I want to shout out the following people for being absolutely instrumental in the creative we put out: Carter Green, Cody Oasen, Caitlin Walter, Matt Gompper, Matt Small, and Jake McHugh. Some of the most talented people I’ve ever met and worked with.”

Ezra also credits his leadership team for trusting him. “My bosses—Sharon McNally (our VP of Marketing), Emily Bremer (Sr. Director of Marketing), Matt Small (Director of Digital Marketing)—have entrusted me and my team to experiment and grow like few other marketing departments would.” He went on to say, “Even our ownership has helped clear barriers and shown tremendous support of what we do.”

Sell the experience

Speaking of movies, some of the most successful ones in the past few years have marketed the theater experience in parallel with the movie itself. Sinners worked with Kodak to explain the different aspect ratios of the film and provide context for which tickets to buy. One Battle After Another created punch cards where you could “collect” every format. Project Hail Mary had viral projectionist photos and BTS imagery. Sometimes marketing the experience is just as important as marketing the product.

I think there are parallels to seeing sports in-person as well. When I asked Ezra how he thinks about using social media to get people to attend games, he shared, “One thing I think we tapped into that has since started a trend in our sport is showcasing stadium atmosphere within the context of special moments on the field. Our videographers have found tremendous success shooting baseball action from different angles, sometimes through the crowd, to highlight the feeling of being there in person.”

It’s true that these posts are the exact ones that make me want to buy a ticket to an afternoon game on a nice day. Ezra said the simple angle change can shift the tone of a video. ”I think a lot of sports photographers and videographers have traditionally stuck to shooting from the sidelines or designated camera well spots. There is so much more to offer than just the competitive, dramatic shots that are close to the action. We want to showcase the atmosphere of watching a game within that collective of the crowd, as well as all the other things that make up the in-game experience—food, beautiful sunsets, in-game entertainment, etc.”

It’s an important reminder for any brand on social media. How do you show (not tell!) how your restaurant or product or service makes people feel?

Twist your audience’s expectations

What the Brewers are doing is not necessarily original, but it’s novel in the context of baseball. Audiences are often taking only a few seconds to decide if they want to watch a piece of content as they scroll. Creating that tension early—”Woah, a baseball highlight that looks and sounds like a movie!”—helps grab attention.

For Ezra, creating cinematic content has given him a new perspective on baseball as a whole. He shared, “Now on my ninth season, I can sometimes take certain things about being in this environment for granted. But because of the different experimentation and the new opportunities that have come from our creative work, I find myself seeing the sport in a different light.”

Final exercise

Write down a list of ways your audience might expect a brand within your industry to show up on social media. What tone do they assume your brand will have? What marketing tactics are they used to seeing?

Write down a list of ways that your competitors show up on social media. What are the themes? The trends? The formats?

Write down a list of ways that would be unexpected for your brand to show up on social media. What references would you pull in? What’s working in other industries? Some of my favorite advice on this comes from Rion Harmon, the co-founder of the agency Day Job. He says, “Pitch wild ideas to shift your client’s [or boss’s] Overton window.” While the wild idea might not get selected or approved, it still helps open people up to other ideas that they never would have thought they wanted to see or hear.

Try making a pilot or post in a new style that feels unexpected for your industry or product. Don’t post it. Or do. See how it performs. Do it again. Start learning.

Thanks so much for reading! Final reminder to take this year’s Very Online Survey. The survey closes tomorrow. Please fill it out here.

Finally, 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!

Here’s what else is in today’s newsletter:

• Is Instagram allowing more than six accounts to collab post?

• My favorite prompt for brainstorming brand partnerships

• Why the B2B company Air is hosting a Boy Throb concert

• I talked to the non-profit that just launched a social show

• Four post formats to try this week

Before we dive in, I am a few people away from hitting the respondent goal for the Very Online Survey. Think of it like a pulse check on the social media industry. The more survey responses, the more helpful the final report. Will you take 10 minutes to fill it out here?

Read more

Lift off was just the beginning. The Artemis social media accounts introduced us to the zero gravity indicator “Rise”, showed us the emotional moment the astronauts named a moon crater Carroll to honor the late wife of mission Commander Reid Wiseman, and kept us up to date on what song the crew was waking up to every morning. They were so far away, but I felt like I was there.

What is it like orchestrating the digital strategy for such a historic and complex mission? In today’s newsletter I spoke with Thalia Patrinos, Artemis Digital Lead, to find out. Thalia has worked in space since 2018, when she started as an intern in the Safety and Technical Operations directorate at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. That same year, she was hired as a contractor for NASA Headquarters and moved to Washington, DC to become a full-time communications strategist. Today she leads and strategizes all digital communications about NASA’s Artemis missions to and around the moon—including social media, video, audio, web presence, and digital engagements.

Below we talk spending six years on the Artemis social strategy, how that very viral Full House crew video came together (it wasn’t pre-planned!), and the “gratification you get for doing the hard thing, not the easy thing.”

Rachel Karten: To start, I have to ask how many social media posts went up during the Artemis II mission?

Thalia Patrinos: Between April 1 and April 10, NASA posted 3,270 times across all of our social media accounts. This figure doesn’t include replies, reposts, or comments.

Rachel: Wow. Those social media posts during the mission were so fun to follow. How long ago did you start working on the social media strategy for this mission?

Thalia: I started working on Artemis digital strategy around six years ago with my “ride or die” Lisa Allen—the two of us have been building the Artemis social media presence from the ground up since the very beginning. It’s always been the two of us at the helm but we’ve had and continue to have support from talented communicators from across the agency. Our digital strategy has evolved over time, similarly to how the scope of Artemis has evolved over time.

We try to strike the right balance between being formal enough to be trusted as the authoritative source of information—while also finding the appropriate moments to have fun and be creative. It’s a careful balance, especially with the spread of misinformation these days.

Rachel: Did you work at all with the astronauts to help them get comfortable being in social media videos? They were all such naturals!

Thalia: I’ve had the honor and pleasure of working with the Artemis II astronauts throughout their assignment but I want to shout out Camille Cowin, Courtney Beasley, and other members of the astronaut support staff who do the media training for our entire astronaut corps.

Our astronauts are truly the best of us. One thing to keep in mind is that people join the corps for lots of reasons: to pursue discovery, to advance humankind, to explore places never explored before…becoming an influencer is not top of mind! So we learned pretty quickly that the Artemis II crew had a natural aversion to anything that felt inauthentic. I honestly think that’s why the public resonates so deeply with them—they simply don’t have to fake it. They are just genuinely cool people who love the opportunity to nerd out and learn new things. They also feel very appreciative that people have really connected to the mission and have expressed their thanks specifically to the community on social media.

Rachel: The Full House video was a top performing post featuring the astronauts. Is that a piece of content that was pre-planned? Take me into the creation of it!

Thalia: This is a perfect example of how genuinely fun the Artemis II crew is. That was not pre-planned. At all. The astronauts were able to downlink a limited amount of videos and imagery every day during the mission using our communication networks. One of the videos in the first batch we received was the one of Reid pointing the camera at his crew, telling each of them to act like they were being introduced in a cheesy 80s sitcom theme song. One of our video editors on standby very quickly cut the version that blew up on social media.

It just goes to show: you can plan and prepare strategies for years in advance of a mission, but once that rocket launches and the astronauts are in space, nobody knows what’s going to happen next. Things happen spontaneously. The most you can do is to prepare your team to be ready for anything.

Rachel: What did launch day look like for you? How long was that day?

Thalia: That was a long day for sure. I think it was close to 24 hours.

Early that morning, members of the digital team and I squished into an office at the press site at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, which is about three miles from the launchpad. We had a clear view of the rocket from outside our window. We were locked in and ready by the time tanking began—this is when the launch control teams fill the rocket with cryogenic propellant.

Tanking is a long, involved, delicate process. With Artemis I, we attempted this process three times before actually launching. So I was hoping for a launch that day, but I was also trying to not get my hopes all the way up, with the understanding that all the Swiss cheese holes need to line up just right to get that ‘go for launch’—weather, hardware, software.

But I felt a vibe shift at a certain point. I think it was when the core stage and upper stage of the rocket were in “replenish mode.” Basically, the tanks are full, but a certain percentage of the propellant is “burning off,” so the engineers switch the valves to keep the propellant slowly filling and maintain the 100% fill line. I remember Lisa and I looking at the data and exchanging a look. Like, oh wow. It might actually happen today.

Then launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson polled her teams, and we tried to contain our emotions as every team, one right after another, polled GO. And finally commander Reid Wiseman chimed in: “Full. Send.”

Everyone at the press site arranged themselves on the shore of the basin to watch those four astronauts launch into the sky on the tippy top of that rocket. We watched with tears in our eyes and feelings of disbelief that after so many years of so many people working on this mission, everything had finally culminated in this beautiful moment of blinding light and earth-shattering sound.

But even though all that work finally led up to that point, for our team, it was still just the beginning. We wiped our tears and headed back to work. Lisa and I didn’t leave the press site until after the proximity operations demonstration. It was a treat to watch pilot Victor Glover experience a “test pilot’s dream”—to manually pilot the Orion spacecraft for the first time ever—and describe the experience in real-time.

When we finally drove back to Cocoa Beach, Lisa and I got stuck behind a truck transporting a piece of a SpaceX rocket. That was kind of hilarious and awful because it was the wee hours of the morning and we were sleep-deprived and delirious. A good taste of what the next ten days would be like...

Rachel: I want to talk about Rise, the Moon Mascot and zero gravity indicator that audiences fell in love with. I believe the design came about through a contest. Can you talk to me about that? I loved when Rise took over the feed for a day.

Thalia: After the Artemis I mission, our team was trying to come up with ideas for how to involve the public in a totally unique way during the Artemis II mission. Artemis II is such a special, ground-breaking mission—we had already done things like naming contests and user-generated content campaigns. We wanted to do something that we had never done before. The credit for the original idea for the Moon Mascot contest goes to my friend and colleague Tiffany Fairley. She said, “Why don’t we hold a competition to design the zero gravity indicator?” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, I was completely sold. I said, “Yes. We’re doing that.” What followed was me championing this idea and leading the effort through years of back-and-forth, research, analysis, and countless obstacles.

The contest was honestly a tough sell for some folks at NASA and our team had to do a lot of convincing. The astronauts were supportive as long as the contest was a global competition, to reflect the global nature of the mission. So we worked with NASA Tournament Lab and an outside vendor called Freelancer to ensure the contest could be as accessible to as many people as possible. The Moon Mascot contest received thousands of submissions from over 50 countries—but of course, we all know who won it in the end. (Congratulations again to Lucas Ye of California for his “Rise” design!)

Our team is so proud and happy with how the public resonated with the contest and how Rise reached an instant celebrity status—it’s hard to emphasize how much work all of it was, so it feels extremely validating. So many meetings about one little stuffie!

And I’m happy you enjoyed the Rise takeover. It was awesome to facilitate that for the little guy. He’s got a lot to say!

Rachel: Were there any posts or formats that surprised you at how well they performed? For example, everyone loved the wake up songs!

Thalia: I mean—the answer is honestly everything. Having worked on Artemis for so many years, obviously we hope that the public will react positively to our content, but we never know for certain until it happens. A spaceflight mission is already such a dynamic event with a level of unpredictability. And then you just never know how the Internet will react (or simply not react) to something. We hoped that the authenticity of our crew would speak to our audiences. We hoped that the ground-breaking nature of our mission would unite the world. We hoped that Rise would become a huge star! But I don’t think any of us anticipated the level at which those things were actually accomplished.

I think even over-achievers at NASA struggle with imposter syndrome to a certain degree. I definitely had a moment recently where I thought, oh wow, maybe I do know what I’m doing!

Rachel: Can you talk about joining Threads? The audience over there was so thrilled!

Thalia: The credit belongs to Brittany Brown, our Head of Digital, who saw the moment and jumped on it. The audience on Threads was (and continues to be) hungry for NASA and Artemis content.

I love how the community on that platform has really taken ownership of the Artemis II mission. I love that people make their own content responding to it and reacting to it from their own unique perspective. I love that people are making Artemis-inspired art, telling their own Artemis stories, sharing their own Artemis takes. It’s a reflection of why I love Artemis in the first place: it belongs to all of us. It belongs to you, too.

Rachel: It’s been amazing to see the content continue after the return to Earth. This video of Astronaut Christina Koch’s dog greeting her was particularly sweet. How are you thinking about keeping the momentum up from the mission?

Thalia: Well, the good news is that cadence of Artemis missions has increased to about once a year. Artemis III will test rendezvous and docking procedures necessary for future crewed landings on the lunar surface in 2027. And Artemis IV will land humans on the Moon in 2028. So we have our work cut out for us—that’s for sure. Although I definitely need to catch my breath a little bit!

Also: shameless plug for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which is launching as early as September 2026. So if you’re in need of a space fix in the meantime, definitely follow that mission!

Rachel: What was the biggest thing you learned during the mission?

Thalia: The thing that excites me the most about Artemis is how it lays the groundwork for crewed missions to Mars. I am a Mars girlie at heart (I’m an Aries…go figure). And I have been obsessed with the Red Planet since I was a little girl reading The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. So I have learned a lot over the years about what future crewed Martian missions could look like—and all the challenges that must be solved before we get there. Artemis missions on the lunar surface will serve as a testbed for all the technologies we need to develop to make crewed Martian missions happen. We have a long way to go, that’s for sure. But it’s insanely exciting.

Rachel: What do you love about your job?

Thalia: I’m going to be very real for a second. This is a difficult job. It’s a lot of late nights, early mornings, weekends, holidays. NASA is a breaking news organization. And that type of work requires a lot of personal sacrifice, a lot of time spent away from friends and family. And the willingness to drop everything and jump in at a moment’s notice.

But moments like the Artemis II mission remind you why you put in the hours and why you do the hard work. The JFK “We go to the Moon” speech is over-quoted, but yeah—there is a level of gratification you get for doing the hard thing, not the easy thing. Nothing about what we do is easy. But it is worth it.

Thanks so much for reading! A quick reminder to take this year’s Very Online Survey. Think of it like a social media pulse check. We’re already getting some great responses that will help all of us do our jobs better. We’ll be collecting answers for another week or so. Please fill it out here.

Finally, 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.

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

Big thank you to everyone who has already taken this year’s Very Online Survey. Think of it like a social media pulse check. We’re already getting some great responses that will help all of us do our jobs better. I loved the advice one respondent shared to “review your drafts in a busy elevator because that's the mental state viewers are in when they encounter your post.” We’ll be collecting answers for another week or so. Please fill it out here!

Here’s what’s in today’s newsletter:

• Is Facebook back?

• What Loewe’s former TikTok lead is up to

• The shareable post format that’s all over my feed right now

• Five post ideas to try this week

• I asked LinkedIn about their PDF quality compression issues

Read more

For the second year now, I am running the Very Online Survey. Think of it like a social media pulse check. While we all wear many hats and work across a wide variety of industries, this survey finds themes and patterns to make us all better at our jobs. Like the specific gear we like to shoot with, the platforms we’re moving away from, and the content formats that are actually working right now. You can take the survey here.

After this survey is conducted, I’ll be publishing a series of newsletters with raw data, interesting findings, and charts breaking it all down. I’ll also be using the results from this year’s survey to compare it against last year’s to really understand how the data is trending. I’m personally very curious to see how the top brands on social list shifts!

Your answers will be completely anonymous and I will not include any identifying information in the results. Thank you so much for taking the time! The more survey responses, the more helpful the final report.

Take the survey!

I’ve brought back Mitch Goldstein to help me design and run this survey. He's worked in social media for over a decade, spending time in newsrooms and ad agencies, and is also skilled at research and data. I am excited to be working with him on this!

By the way, I have seen the very impressive behind-the-scenes footage that Apple shared of their MacBook Neo commercial. The virality has generated a flurry of think pieces about how brands are posting BTS to prove they didn’t use AI. So it’s probably a good time to celebrate the one-year anniversary of writing my “proof of reality” post! Last April I wrote, “As some brands slopify themselves, it will be the ones that invest even deeper in good creative that will stand out. With this, we’ll see a rise in what I am calling ‘proof of reality’ posts—videos, images, and captions that clarify how specific creative was made.” Spot on, I’d say.

Here’s what is in today’s newsletter:

• Why Adam Mosseri thinks follower count is a misleading metric

• Opt-in vs opt-out social media

• I asked , ’s social strategist and trusted collaborator, about how to promote a book (or anything!) online right now

• Duolingo is having trouble reaching their 17M TikTok followers

• Three post formats to try this week

• The choreographer your brand should work with before Gap does

• A big idea for a skincare brand

Read more

Many of the responses have come through private messages and DMs, with people letting me know they gave it a “silent repost” out of fear that their boss would see anything public. One person shared, “It made me (and my work BFFs) feel less lonely and crazy.” It’s on track to be one of my most-viewed sends so I’m hoping at least a few of your bosses have read it.

Here’s what’s in today’s newsletter:

• A new approach to tourism social media

• This brand might owe up to $20M for using unlicensed music

• Emily Sweeney from The Boston Globe shares a social video tip

• Five post formats to try this week

• A sponsored post with 35.2M views

• The only Coachella influencer trip I liked

Read more

In the weeks that followed my discovery of the post, I’ve been having conversations with marketers about what it’s like to be on a team where leadership is obsessed with AI. While the news stories around how AI is impacting marketing mostly revolve around job loss—a recent Adweek headline reads “65% of Marketing Jobs May Not Survive AI”, for example—I haven’t heard about how it’s impacting those who are still in those jobs. It’s clear these fear-inducing headlines are trickling down, with leadership scrambling to make sure they aren’t left behind. What is it like working for one of those bosses right now?

“Demoralizing as hell”

When I posted the Reddit screenshot on my LinkedIn, I received almost 200 comments. One read, “It didn’t matter that I was writing excellent content — [the CEO] fully believed AI was better at everything. It was so discouraging and made the day-to-day of my job miserable. And who can create good, engaging content from that mindset?”

I heard many more examples just like this. That leadership feedback is now relegated to their AI chatbot of choice. Copy, briefs, and campaigns all run through AI. One person shared with me, “My managers keep taking my copy that’s with them for final approval, running it through AI, and going ‘here, use this.’ A huge waste of time and effort on everyone’s part, not to mention demoralizing as hell.”

Marketers also shared that they’ll look to their boss for feedback on something and immediately get told to ask AI instead. One commenter on the Reddit thread said, “CEO was like ‘don’t share anything (i.e. drafts for review) if you haven’t run it through AI.’” Another person told me, “Literally every action item from a meeting is met with ‘just ask Claude it’. Even creative hooks for marketing.” To a boss, that’s just them being “efficient”. To an employee, that’s their boss saying, “I trust AI more than I trust you or myself.” That has an impact on job satisfaction. I heard from a few marketers who have left jobs in part due to this sort of behavior.

I should mention that feedback and approvals have always been a frustrating dance in marketing, even before AI. I covered it here. But at least there was a mutual understanding that your manager was actually taking the time to review the thing you had worked hard on. Even if the feedback wasn’t what you wanted to hear, it came from a place of assumed expertise. Now it feels like AI is the final approver.

Not only is leadership using AI in their own work, but they are forcing employees to use it as well. The problem is that many of the tasks that bosses are asking their team to use AI for are the exact ones that made them want to work in marketing in the first place. Brainstorming. Writing clever copy. Thinking outside of the box. One marketer told me, “It feels like our bosses are more intent on using AI to take away the fun parts of our job instead of automating the more menial tasks that take up so much of our time day-to-day.”

Some employees are finding workarounds. One person shared that their boss “doesn’t care about his team’s experience and expertise. He wants a summary from Copilot instead. We’ve started writing our own summaries and putting it on fake Copilot chats to get him to listen to us.”

Outsourced gut instinct

So much of good marketing is instincts. Seeing the signs before anyone else. Translating a spark into a smart campaign. Knowing the line between brilliance and brash. With AI, we’re watching decision makers run big ideas through a machine that finds the median.

One of the people who left their job in part due to an AI-obsessed boss shared the worst offense. Their boss would put memes meant to be posted on social pages into Claude to see if they were funny.

I asked some of the marketers I spoke with if their boss’s use of AI has changed their perception of them. Many said it did. When the person who is supposedly in a role because of their experience and intelligence is constantly outsourcing their instincts to AI, it says to a team, “I don’t trust my own opinions on humor, storytelling, and marketing”. Which, if that’s the case, wouldn’t that make those leadership jobs the most susceptible to be replaced by AI?

One person shared, “It validates to me how absolutely unqualified and inept these people in C-suite positions are that they need a machine/robot to validate their opinions because they have no real POV and strategy themselves. They so desperately want to always be the right answer in the room. To have a machine that can’t argue back and essentially feeds their own thoughts back to them is a case study in the narcissism of executive leadership.”

“Sometimes it kind of feels like I’m training my replacement”

That’s another comment that a marketer left on my LinkedIn post.

As I was writing this piece, I came across an interview with the co-founder of AI note taking app Granola on ACCESS. In it, the co-founder said that the CEOs of companies using Granola are making it a requirement that their employees run the note taker during all meetings because “they all kind of realize that it’s going to be such valuable context for all of the internal AI agents doing the work in the future.” Even if you are just using AI for meeting notes, it’s also providing training data for the tools that some executives want to replace you with.

It’s statements like the above that make it unsurprising that a recent Stanford study found AI experts and the U.S. public have very different perspectives on AI’s future. On how people do their jobs, 73% of experts expect AI to provide a positive impact compared to just 23% of the public. Is the expert opinion optimistic because of the actual opportunity of AI? Or is it because the expert is likely financially tied to there being an opportunity in the first place?

I heard that many companies now have questions about AI usage in job interviews and performance reviews. Gold stars for prompting. But when every employee is using AI, what’s left? As one person put it, “Lowkey it sometimes feels like my job is ‘I’ll have my AI talk to your AI’”.

For many marketers, they unfortunately feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Someone shared with me, “I’m relatively early on in my career and am faced with this uncomfortable situation where I either need to fully embrace AI to feel secure in my job or risk ‘getting behind’ and not meeting performance expectations.”

These feelings are shared by veteran marketers as well. One told me, “We’re on a runaway AI train with no breaks — and even less strategic direction. I’ve been doing this for 13 years and this is no longer the marketer I want to be.”

Where’s the strategy?

My point here isn’t to judge the work of AI (I already did that here), but to talk about the way it’s being rolled out to marketing teams. I am not naive enough to think that the answer is for companies to stop using it altogether. But, just like any other type of big company change, there needs to be an implementation strategy.

A recent Gallup poll found that “while 44% of employees say their organization has begun integrating AI, only 22% say their organization has communicated a clear plan or strategy for doing so.” That’s a problem. Any time that I’ve been in a job where a process-disrupting software is rolled out, there has been change management. A slow, considered approach to how the new tool is marketed internally and adopted team-wide. Usually there is someone on the software team assigned to the company, hand holding and educating. That’s not happening with AI tools.

Right now the adoption of AI on marketing teams feels more like a scramble than a strategy. A race to be the first without thinking of the ramifications. One person shared, “There has been no official training, guidance, or even guardrails for how we are expected to use or adopt AI tools, just a directive that we should be doing it as much as possible.”

As a recent article in Slate put it, “Unless organizations develop clear strategies, A.I. in the workplace becomes a bull in a china shop—with those who never even wanted it tasked with cleaning up the mess.”

So much of the dialogue around AI focuses on the long-term employment effects. There’s also something urgent happening in the here and now. Leadership is being sold a future where creative work is done by AI agents and moving at reckless speeds to not get left behind. Meanwhile, marketing teams—and I am sure teams across many industries—are feeling increasingly dehumanized and unsatisfied in their roles because of the way AI is being implemented without any vision or care.

In short, we’re all losing our minds.

Cartoons by Ryan Cecil Smith

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. One member shared, “The Link in Bio Discord has been an absolutely invaluable part of my growth as a social media professional. It’s allowed me to meet so many fascinating and talented folks in an industry that can often feel like living on an island, and helped me contextualize a lot of the mysteries of social.”

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Finally, if you’re already a paid subscriber, thank you for making this newsletter possible! I’ll be back Thursday with the this week’s strategy send.

On Tuesday, WIRED published an article digging into how Chaotic Good Projects worked with the band Geese. The headline? The Fanfare Around the Band Geese Actually Was a Psyop. Psyop! They wrote, “Essentially, the firm creates networks of social media pages (typically on TikTok) and uses them to drive the band’s music into the recommendation algorithm.” The Twitter conversation immediately picked back up.

It’s not often that marketing discourse makes my head spin. Here’s a peek inside my brain on Tuesday:

This is just how marketing works. Get used to it.

But if they are paying people to post a song. Shouldn’t it be disclosed as an ad?

I wonder if my favorite SpongeBob Squarepants edit to Geese was part of the campaign…

It doesn’t matter that this is “just how marketing works”. How fans and consumers perceive marketing is just as important as the marketing itself.

Is it ethical?

Wait, the FTC told Billboard that accounts don’t need disclose if they are paid to use a song.

Maybe it’s just that this specific tactic doesn’t match the “brand” of Geese.

The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing but when does it go too far?

I should log off.

For today’s newsletter, I wanted to talk to someone who works in music marketing. Kalesha Madlani has held roles at places like Sony Music, Epic Records, Interscope Records, and now works in marketing at SoundCloud. She’s worked with artists like Lana Del Rey and Zara Larsson. Below we talk about her time running @1DUpdatesOnline, what she thinks of the term “industry plant”, and why she hopes more teams lean into direct-to-fan marketing.

Rachel Karten: First, can you tell me a little bit about your background in marketing and music?

Kalesha Madlani: I got my start in music by running one of the biggest fan pages in history (I was eclipsed by the Blinks when Blackpink came around). I ran @1DUpdatesOnline, and had nearly a million followers at 17 years old. I leveraged the fan account to live tweet on behalf of the band at events and award shows, which ultimately lead to my first internship at Sony Music. I’ve advocated for fans and fandom long before ‘superfan’ was a buzzword, back when the industry still thought it was uncool, and everything I do in music leads back to my ‘why’—I do it all for the fans!

I’ve spent most of my career in between music and tech, working frontline at major record labels and at music-tech companies leading partnerships.

At Epic Records, I supported releases across the entire roster—Travis Scott, 21 Savage, Meghan Trainor, Zara Larsson, Mimi Webb, to name a few. At Interscope Records I led digital strategy for Lana Del Rey, Jon Batiste, Willow, Ellie Goulding, Gwen Stefani, and more.

Following my time at record labels, I launched my own creative advisory.

Now, at SoundCloud, I work closely with our internal team and joint-venture partners to identify artists before labels catch wind of them, and offer them white glove artist services—marketing, digital, creative, project management, release strategy, commercial strategy, etc—to prepare them for the next step in their career. It’s a great opportunity to be a part of an artists early journey and help them out so they don’t go into these label meetings blind. Most artists have no idea what they can expect from a label or manager and by offering them white glove artist services, we can provide them with a launchpad for success.

Rachel: I have to start with Geese-gate. What was your reaction to the reaction?

Kalesha: I laughed, honestly. Clipping is such an old strategy. It’s not even innovative anymore. And Geese of all artists! I think most people have no idea how the music business works and they would have a stroke if they really knew what goes into making an artist pop nowadays.

Rachel: What other social media marketing tactics are popular in music that you think might surprise fans?

Kalesha: So many! Most “fan pages”, especially for newer artists, are team led. You can confirm an artists fan pages are team lead a few different ways:

1. Number of fan pages and viral TikToks do not match up to number of tickets sold

2. Fans at concerts only know the TikTok snippet of a song

3. Fan page doesn’t have “standard” fan behavior (no photos of the fan, no emotional language, no “fan account” mention in the bio—this is necessary to avoid copyright issues, but if its team led, they’re already whitelisting the account—the account always has information early, etc.

Rachel: Can you manufacture fandom for an artist or band?

Kalesha: The best thing to keep in mind is very rarely is anything on the internet an accident. Everything is planned and nothing is real. While you can manufacture awareness with a hefty budget, you can’t manufacture fandom. That’s an experience that requires years of work and buy in from every angle—artist, manager, label, agent, and, of course, the fans. While you can manufacture the idea of fandom through virality, smoke and mirrors, I do believe we’re going to witness a pendulum shift very soon. People are getting fatigued and marketers need to switch things up.

As a future thinking marketer, some of my focuses moving forward are: direct-to-fan marketing, events and experiential, creative OOH, intentional livestreams, and creating safety and meaning for the community. I’ve coined the term “the meaning economy”, which I outline in my advisory white paper here.

Rachel: What do you think people mean when they accuse someone of being an “industry plant”?

Kalesha: There’s really no such thing. This industry moves off of relationships, it’s all about who knows you. Most people who use the term “industry plant” have no clue what they’re talking about. Most “industry plants” have 5-10 years of hard work under their belt. Blood, sweat, tears, and a lot of money go into making a star.

Rachel: You’ve worked in this industry for a long time. These interest-based algorithms seem like a real shift in how both artists and bands post. What are some of the ways music marketing has changed due to that?

Kalesha: Before, artists would get signed to record labels and were promoted via relationships the labels had with cultural accounts—TV, press, film, media, etc. Nowadays, so many of those institutions no longer exist or no longer move the needle. The tech companies have more power than the media platforms do, which is why you only see marquee artists getting support from Meta, TikTok, Snap, etc. It’s impossible to service everyone, so you have to pick and choose.

The old model of A&R has also changed how artists are signed and marketed. Before, a kid nobody knew would get signed and labels would market the hell out of them until they became a star. Nowadays, nearly every label owns some distribution company that provides them with data. For example, when a major label purchases a distributor, the data from all of the developing artists uploading their music to these free or cheap distributors is given to the major labels. The labels have certain algorithms that trigger alerts whenever an artist reaches a certain threshold, using whatever data they see fit (streams, followers, impressions, etc), and once the trigger hits, the A&R process begins. You have to have motion now in order to get signed or even considered.

Rachel: Are there any bands or artists that you think are doing a great job of showing up on social media right now?

Kalesha: So many, and it’s a spectrum. On the independent side, I love Liim—a Harlem based alt/hip hop artist. He uses social media in such an authentic, genuine way and has leveraged the “finsta” trend to generate hype around him and his music. He’s been cosigned by Tyler The Creator, ASAP Rocky, Joey Bada$$ and more. He’s up next for sure.

On the other side of the spectrum, you have groups like Katseye who have an ultra manufactured machine around their marketing—the girls have a dedicated content team that goes everywhere with them. Before rehearsals even begin, they spend at least an hour shooting TikToks. Before shows, all the girls get content for both the Katseye page and their personal pages. As industry darlings, they also get tons of support from the platforms—Meta, TikTok, etc.

At the end of the day, it’s less about the artist and more about the team behind them. There’s so much turnover in music marketing—with layoffs and never ending poaching, people are hopping around and not taking their roster with them. So one day an artist will be on top and the next day they’ll be silent because their content / digital / marketing / seeding person left, or the label ran out of budget to pay the secret nerdy teams that are boosting everyone online.

There should be awards for the best digital marketers, they don’t get enough recognition for the work they do.

On the artist side, I’d love to see more long term focus on content and social. More artist teams need to build out internal agencies. Due to lack of resources and headcount, it seems like artists only get invested in when they’re having a moment (see Zara Larsson for example). The talent has always been there but the digital budget was unlocked only after she had her viral meme.

Rachel: What do you love about working in music marketing?

Kalesha: I genuinely love telling stories and creating fun experiences for fans. The more depth an artist has, the better story I can tell. I come from a superfan background, so this is my way of paying it forward.

What I’m scrolling

The New York Public Library posted a Dic Pic. Short for Charles Dickens’s The Pickwick Papers, of course. In Link in Bio’s recent trend report, Paulina Mangubat shared that our feeds would get more ribald…but with purpose. This is a good example of that. So is NYGov’s “hole filling season” post that has 74K likes.

This video from a new bandage company has 601K views and 48K likes. So much of a social launch strategy is spent overthinking photoshoots and grids, when videos like this are what actually move the needle.

Is the best part about Instagram Edits the analytics? Samantha Yehle called out on LinkedIn that the editing tool now lists engagement metrics in order of importance to reach.

I love Peloton’s ad with Hudson Williams. It’s directed by Bethany Vargas, who also directed Gap’s Katseye ad and Young Miko ad.

A.I. has a message problem of its own making. Great read from in The New Yorker. “A more effective strategy might be for A.I. executives to stop appointing themselves as the only arbiters of safety, to stop asking for blind faith, and to start fostering a system of external accountability, with input and involvement from the public.”

Every account right now is asking their followers to vote for them in The Webby’s, but this creator did it best. Friend of the newsletter Max Zavidow filmed his mom handing out flyers in a park and asking people to vote. It’s wholesome and also clearly gets his message across. A good lesson in making a big audience ask entertaining.

Carvel made one person’s day and got 2.1M views. It was in response to this viral video. Too many brands would look at the original viral video, see the user has under 10K followers, leave a comment, and move on. Instead, brands should be looking at the velocity of a story—no matter the follower count of who posted!—and if there’s a way to supercharge it.

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Here’s what’s in today’s newsletter:

• I spoke to the agency behind @arbysboys and @not_spiritairlines

• The Instagram Explore page is changing…

• Why I’m bullish on ShopMy’s new Substack

• Four post formats to try this week

• The skincare brand YouTube channel that got 8M views in 30 days

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The end of the report focuses on how brands are refocusing on resonance. Ditching quick trends and creating posts that actually stick. While I was writing that section, I thought about the campaigns from the last three months that still felt top of mind to me. One I kept coming back to was SheaMoisture’s Silk Press Conference, where stylist Law Roach interrupts a “silk press conference” between Clarke Peoples, Kirah Ominique, Masai Russell, and Serena Page. It’s clever, entertaining, and somehow still heroes the brand’s new product. As one commenter put it, “I just love that we’re making marketing fun again 😍 ATE!” The campaign has over 3M views across platforms.

For today’s newsletter, I spoke with Alyssa Ackerman, Social Lead at SheaMoisture, to understand how the campaign came together. (It was born out of a sticky note brainstorm!) Alyssa is also the Creative Editorial Director at CultureCon and The Creative Collective NYC, where she oversees all creative and editorial output across social, email, website, and experiential. She previously worked at or consulted for Topicals, Hypebeast, Parkwood Entertainment, Refinery29, BREAD, Farmacy Beauty, and more.

A big part of why SheaMoisture’s campaign resonated is because it made their audience feel seen. As Alyssa tells me below, “I never try to make content go viral…I’m trying to make content that makes someone feel seen—and if it goes viral, that’s because we got the first part right.” I talk to Alyssa about her favorite tools for content planning, the role instinct plays in her strategy, and why social should be there to build the foundation of a campaign and not be “handed the keys after the house was already built”.

Rachel Karten: If you had to sum up your social media philosophy, what would it be?

Alyssa Ackerman: The best social doesn’t follow culture, it understands it well enough to move with it.

That distinction matters more than people realize. Anyone can hop on a trend. And any brand with a big enough budget can hire an agency to reverse-engineer what’s working and produce a version of it two days later (sometimes hours, if they’re really good 😉) . What I care about—and what I’ve built my unique sauce around—is something harder to replicate: it’s the kind of cultural fluency that lets a brand show up in a way that feels native, not performed.

That fluency starts with listening. Like, really listening—not just to what your audience is saying about your brand, but how they’re talking to each other, what they’re celebrating, what they’re tired of, and what kind of content makes them feel like someone finally gets it. When you build from that place, social stops being a distribution channel and starts being a relationship. And relationships, over time, become the thing that no algorithm update or competitor budget can take from you. You own the #1 spot on their story lists. You’re the pinned conversation in their DMs. You’re the one they want to hear from, not the one they quietly mute.

I never try to make content go viral (anyone who still says this should remove from their vocabulary stat). I’m trying to make content that makes someone feel seen—and if it goes viral, that’s because we got the first part right.

Rachel: About a year ago you wiped SheaMoisture’s feed and started fresh. What were some of the big changes you made to how the brand shows up online?

Alyssa: Shea is a special brand to be a part of. There’s so much heritage there to respect. But years of history also comes with the weight of old habits—and the very real need to capture the hearts of a new generation who’d rather reach for the trendy new haircare line from their favorite influencer or celebrity.

I came in as a strategist tasked with building their new annual playbook. A brand refresh was already underway, and a strong social perspective was needed to help tell that story in a way that honored the brand’s legacy while signaling to new audiences who the OG in Black beauty really is—one of my favorite phrases I coined for them. After playbook was done, I was invited to join the team full-time.

Some of the biggest changes I made centered on visual content first. Our creative director, ShaNiece Pyles and her team had captured hair, versatility, and expression so beautifully—I knew I wanted that work to live across every format, every piece of real estate I owned. It was bold, fresh, and an undeniable representation of Black girlhood.

Beyond visuals, I knew how important it was for our audience to not only see herself, but to hear herself. Shea had long been associated with the aunties—and honestly, to some, it probably still is, and rightfully so. But in this new era, I wanted us to claim authority and cultural relevance. Not through gen-z speak or borrowed slang, but in the ways she and we actually talk: playful, casual, and 100% ownable.

I also had the pleasure of collaborating with my Topicals-alumni, Imani Moss, on influencer and social crossovers—one of my many favorite places to play. She had the it-girls that worked for Shea’s new direction, I had the vision for how it would live on social, and together we created some of the brand’s best social-owned moments. That kind of cross-collaboration is what I believe helped put Shea back on the map in a genuinely remarkable way.

Rachel: I want to zoom into your recent Silk Press Conference campaign. You’ve shared that it was born out of a “dream like you have no budget cap” sticky note brainstorm. Do you remember what was written on that sticky note?

Alyssa: Honestly? Not even a little. There were hundreds of sticky notes by the end of that eight-hour day.

What I can tell you is that the session itself was magic—and that’s largely a credit to our Head of Marketing, Reema Amin. I’ve sat on a lot of marketing and creative teams over the years, and I tell her often: this is my first experience working with a marketing lead who truly gets social. Not “social-first” as a buzzword, but someone who genuinely sees eye to eye with me and understands that leading with this mindset creates immediate, measurable impact—for growth, for the business, for every cross-functional team it touches.

Our full internal brand team was in that room. We had to dream without limits, but we also had a product to launch: our newest innovation, Silk Press In A Bottle. So the dreams had to mean something.

We threw out our wildest ideas. I originally pitched Katt Williams as our Silk Press King—and the team instantly ate it up. It didn’t work out, but we landed Law Roach, who turned out to be an even better fit. And as a Chicago girl, the fact that we share the same roots made me feel giddy inside.

Casting from Reema and our influencer team was impeccable, but it wasn’t the only spark. What made Silk Press Conference actually work was every person in that room and our external partners deciding to protect the idea all the way through—from a sticky note on a wall to the brand’s most engaging campaign to date. That’ll never get old for me.

Rachel: How do you know when a campaign idea has it? I know it can just be a feeling, but I am curious if you’re able to put it into words.

Alyssa: It’s actually pretty difficult to put into words, so I appreciate you calling that upfront.

I’m lucky enough to work in spaces where I’m part of the target audience. Which means my friends and peers are too. That proximity is a kind of leverage most people underestimate. Because of it, knowing whether something has it is less of an analysis and more of a light switching on (or off) in my brain. A feeling in my gut that I’ve learned to trust deeply. I lead with intuition more often than not, and I don’t take that inner knowing lightly.

That instinct, paired with the ability to simply vibe test an idea with people who reflect the audience, is how I know. If I don’t have an immediate reaction, it’s more than likely a no for me. I’m not someone whose enthusiasm can be easily manufactured or sold—I can tell pretty quickly whether something has it or not.

That said, I’ll admit I’m not always right. And I genuinely love being proven wrong, because there’s real growth in that.

Rachel: I’ve covered a lot of big campaigns. I can almost immediately tell when social was involved from the beginning. Why do you think it’s important for social teams to be brought in at the outset of a campaign?

Alyssa: I say this often: in today’s marketing landscape, social is the nucleus. It’s also the connective tissue between creative and brand—one of the only teams that gets to see the full arc of a campaign from both sides and pick up workstreams from each.

Traditionally, brands would spend hundreds of thousands—sometimes millions—on a single ad spot with a single asset. Once it was live, you stepped back and waited for a signal from your CMO the next morning. That model is over, or at least it should be. Social is your opportunity to directly connect with your audience in real time: to address pain points, build genuine relationship, and—my favorite part—tell a story that keeps unfolding long after launch day.

When social is brought in early, you gain three things: invaluable cultural perspective that can shape the campaign before it’s too late to change course, a strategic throughline that ensures every asset has a life beyond the hero moment, and more content than you’d ever get from a single shoot day. The difference between a campaign that lands and one that fades is usually whether social helped build the foundation—or was handed the keys after the house was already built.

Rachel: Do you have any tools you use to help prepare for a campaign shoot?

Alyssa: My boss at Topicals once coined the term “left brain creative”—and that’s me to the T. Though I’ll admit, some mornings I wake up more right-brained than others.

Tools are my secret weapon. And I think they’re a big part of what makes me more than just a social girl. I see things 360 and I act on them 360. I consider all angles, evaluate risk, and ask myself the simple question: is this cool, or is it not? But then from there, I build. An idea becomes a plan, a plan becomes a brief, and a brief becomes execution—whether by me or my team.

My go-tos: Airtable for daily planning and project management, Pitch or Google Slides for presentations, Notion for team knowledge bases, and Canva or Figma for collaborative creative direction. Each one serves a different part of my brain, and together they keep the work organized without killing the instinct.

Rachel: A lot of big brand campaigns flop on social. If you had to diagnose an overall theme for why, what would it be?

Alyssa: They’re still working from old approaches to marketing, resulting in them not trusting the people closest to the audience to inform them on how to show up.

Social teams at large companies are often the youngest, most culturally plugged-in people in the building. They know the audience. They live in the same feeds, use the same platforms, speak the same language. And yet they’re frequently the last ones invited into the room (if they’re invited at all). That disconnect between where the decisions are made and where the culture actually lives is, in my experience, the root of most campaign misfires.

Rachel: Do you have any advice for advocating for yourself when you work in social media?

Alyssa: When you work in social for a company that wants to actually succeed on social, your job is to be present in as many rooms, and on as many projects as your strategy can support. If you see a campaign in the works and you have no seat at the table, knock on the door. And when it opens, come prepared with a point worth fighting for.

The honest truth is that some people simply don’t consider social when a campaign is being built. And some people don’t take it seriously enough to seek out the person who does. That’s not an excuse to fall back, let that be your motivation. Come with the data, the precedent, the case for why your presence changes the outcome. Make social impossible to overlook.

My favorite way to frame it: would you rather have my input now or would you rather watch the asset tank later? Bold, I know, but you can soften the delivery without losing the point. Either way, the truth remains.

Rachel: I’d love to do a few rapid fire questions to end! If you could only post on one platform for the next year, which would you choose?

Alyssa: TikTok - one repeatable content series that never changes. You know the brand for that kind of content, that’s it.

Rachel: What’s one thing you wish more CMOs understood about social media?

Alyssa: It’s never as simple as you think, and reducing tasks to simplicity is undermining someone’s skillset.

Rachel: Biggest brand social pet peeve?

Alyssa: Corny community engagement comments.

Rachel: Best social media tip you’ve ever received?

Alyssa: Stop trying so hard.

Rachel: One thing you love about working in social media

Alyssa: The ability to flex my creative, entrepreneurial, and marketing muscles all at once.

Before you go, Check out the Link in Bio Job Board! There are new roles from Fly By Jing, Anthropic, PBS, and more.

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The Brand Social Trend Report: Q1 2026 covers topics like:

• Delayed virality

• TikTok’s slow down

• Accounts going create mode

• “Drop everything” campaigns

• Human interest = brand interest

• A refocus on resonance

There are also trend contributions from people working at places like New York Magazine, Amtrak, BÉIS, Jeopardy, and more.

Thank you to paid subscribers for supporting the newsletter and making reports like this possible! If you’ve been thinking about upgrading your free subscription, this is a good one to do it for. Plus, you’ll 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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The brand’s recent Women in Medicine campaign, which features Lenny Kravitz’s It Ain’t Over ’til It’s Over, has 4M views and 34K shares on Instagram. They worked with The Pitt’s Noah Wyle on a custom FIGS tuxedo that he wore to the Emmys. They recently helped develop the Healthcare is Human Act, a bipartisan bill that would provide a federal tax credit of up to $6,000 per year to healthcare professionals serving communities most impacted by shortages. The emotional truths in their holiday film led to over 143K likes. They showed up with a coffee truck at the New York nurses’ strike.

While many of the examples above are expressed on social media, I’ve worked in this industry long enough to know that’s not where they all started. These are clear reflections of how the entire marketing organization operates—a team that takes risks and acts with purpose. Want to be a social-first brand? Start with marketing leadership.

That’s why for today’s newsletter I wanted to talk to Bené Eaton, the CMO of FIGS, about her approach to big brand moments. She’s held marketing roles at places like Nike, Ralph Lauren, and Under Armour. She also reads Link in Bio.

Below we talk about the unexpected campaign metric she tracks, how the brand uses music as an “emotional shorthand”, and the advice she’d give a social media manager who wants to be in her role one day.

Rachel Karten: What role does social media play in your position as CMO of FIGS?

Bené Eaton: Social is where our brand breathes. Alongside in-person connections, social is where we listen, learn, and reflect our community back to itself.

I think what makes the healthcare community so unique is that they have so many lived experiences and they share those experiences online—their highs, their lows, the intensity of what they go through every day. Social gives us a space to connect with them. And then, of course, to also share their stories. It’s central to everything we do.

Rachel: What I love about FIGS on social is that it’s less about the technical qualities of the scrubs, and is more about a celebration of healthcare workers. If you work in healthcare, you want to follow FIGS. How intentional is that positioning?

Bené: 1000%. Everything we do is about telling the story of the people who are wearing FIGS.

I love that you say it feels like a celebration. I mean, that’s the best compliment. Our mission at FIGS is to celebrate, empower, and serve healthcare professionals. And so it’s awesome that you see our social as the living embodiment of that mission.

I think for us, in culture, we’re used to seeing celebrities revered. Or even in my past life, coming from Nike and Under Armour, you see athletes put on center stage and billboards. Our founders, Heather and Trina, even from the beginning, they asked themselves, “What about the people who are saving lives? Who’s telling their story? They are doing the world’s most important work. They’re curing diseases, they’re researching, they’re literally saving people’s lives every minute of the day. And so why aren’t they celebrated?” That’s really the intent of what we try to do in all facets of our branding and marketing, but social really is the embodiment of that.

Rachel: There’s also an amazing specificity to your campaigns. In the recent Women in Medicine campaign there’s a subtle eye roll and line about epidurals that your audience all picks up on in the comments. Do you have healthcare professionals who are on the marketing team or brainstorming with you?

Bené: We are genuinely obsessed with the healthcare community. We have what we call an Ambassador community. These are a group of healthcare professionals and their full-time main job is working as a healthcare professional. We have about 500 of them globally. We lean on them for all of our sort of insights and really try to understand what they’re going through.

With the women in medicine film, every single scene that we shot came from an actual story. We sat with all of the women that we were going to feature and we were asking them about the types of scenarios they’ve been in. So we captured that. When we rolled cameras, we told them to do what they would normally do in the office and relive the experience they shared.

Those details matter, like the eye roll or those little vignettes that we capture. I think that’s what makes someone feel seen.

I’ll say on a personal note, I’m super fortunate because my husband is a doctor. He is a good gut check. I’ll be like, “Would you actually say this? Is it correct?” We met in college, so I’ve been there through medical school, residency, and now working for years and years in healthcare as a physician. I have that lucky advantage as well.

Rachel: That specificity also makes the campaigns more memorable. There’s a real resonance to what FIGS posts on social media. It’s not because you are doing every trend or participating in every cultural moment. It’s because when the brand does speak, it matters. How do you prioritize memorability?

Bené: We are comfortable taking risks. I think designing a tux for The Pitt’s Noah Wyle was completely out of our lane. We had never designed or created a tuxedo before. I had in my past life working at Ralph Lauren, but not in the world of FIGS. But we really believed in what he represented and it was coming from a genuine real place because he had such a passion for this community. He also thanked the healthcare professionals when he received his award at the Emmys.

Rachel: In today’s algorithm, everyone is an influencer if the story is told right. I love how you highlighted Lindsey Vonn’s doctors, for example. You essentially gave them the star treatment in this campaign. That really resonates on social right now, especially when you’re highlighting the effort that goes into these healthcare roles. It’s like an antidote to the “make everything more efficient with AI” story we’re hearing everywhere right now.

Bené: Healthcare is just human nature, right? AI can never replace the work of a healthcare professional and the way they connect with their patients. So I do think, by nature, when we’re telling these stories, they hit at these deep human truths. In the age of AI, I think that really cuts through.

Rachel: Music plays such an integral part of your campaigns. There was I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) and now It Ain’t Over ‘til It’s Over. How do you decide the song that will carry through the campaign? And why is it important to use a known song as opposed to stock music?

Bené: We spend a lot of time on music, so thank you for seeing that. For us, music is a bit of an emotional shorthand. It can carry stories in such a beautiful way and so we always look for songs that amplify the feeling that we’re trying to create.

For Lenny Kravitz’s It Ain’t Over ‘til It’s Over, it is just a song that makes you feel something—where you smile but also get teary-eyed at the same time. It worked for our women in medicine campaign because there’s this idea that women still have so much work to do in this space and it’s not over yet. We’re just getting started.

Rachel: Are you working with agencies on these campaigns or are you doing most of them in house?

Bené: Everything’s in house.

Rachel: Wow. That is extremely impressive.

Bené: The in-house team we have at FIGS is so special. I can say this because I’ve worked for the most amazing brands and with the best agencies in the world. Jenny Seyfried, our SVP of Brand & Creative has amazing relationships with all of our community members. Sam Pepke, our director, who creates all of our films, has great chemistry with the team.

I always tell my team, life’s so short, we’re here to do the best work of our lives.

Rachel: You have a film director who’s in house?

Bené: Yeah, we have an in-house film director. He does all of the films you’ve seen—including our “Where do you wear FIGS?” films from last year and our “Never Change” films this year. We have an in-house film director, in-house art directors, graphic designers, in-house narrative and copy. Everything is done by the FIGS team.

Having an in-house film team means we’re not reinventing ourselves every campaign. We’re building on a deep understanding of our community. That continuity creates a consistency you can feel. Each campaign is distinct, but all unmistakably FIGS. And just as importantly, it allows us to move quickly, trust our instincts, and create without layers.

Rachel: That’s amazing.

Bené: They are so talented. It’s a very humbling experience to get to lead this team because they bring so much passion and they want to shine a spotlight on this community, like you said, that doesn’t always get the spotlight.

Rachel: Are there any unique or unexpected metrics you like to track when it comes to campaigns?

Bené: We pay attention to things that do not show up neatly in a dashboard. I love what I call “break room buzz.” It is not a formal metric, but it is very real. Like I said, my husband is a physician, and when he comes home from the hospital and says, “everyone was talking about the FIGS Women’s film,” that is gold.

That is when I know the work traveled. Peer to peer. Human to human. In the spaces that actually matter.

We look for signals of that kind of organic velocity. How ideas move inside hospitals. How often FIGS comes up in conversation when we are not in the room. It may sound anecdotal, but when you see it consistently, it becomes directional truth.

If we are showing up at the nurses’ station, we are doing something right!

Rachel: A lot of social media managers read this newsletter and some might want to be in a CMO position one day, what advice would you give to them?

Bené: I would say be a student of what’s around you, but don’t copy it. I think there is a lot of pressure to follow trends or just replicate what’s working. But the most valuable thing someone can bring is having a point of view.

Correction: I mistakenly said that FIGS “introduced” the Healthcare is Human Act, when I should have said “helped develop”.

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

Finally, check out the Link in Bio Job Board. There are new roles from Substack, Audible, e.l.f. Cosmetics, and more!

I also finally cracked open ’ A Swim in a Pond in the Rain. The book is about writing fiction but it’s also about keeping a reader’s attention. In it, Saunders highlights the role escalation plays in short stories. He says, “Always be escalating. That’s all a story is, really: a continual system of escalation. A swath of prose earns its place in the story to the extent that it contributes to our sense that the story is (still) escalating.”

A story that escalates builds reader investment. So does a good social media strategy. In my recent interview with the Fishwife team, a reader commented, “What I take [away] is how they’ve really focused on the emotional bts component as part of their social strategy, which generates the feeling of people rooting for them even as their brand profile has rose.” A business is, by nature, filled with escalation. How do you capture it all in a way that allows your audience to root for you?

Kate Bolger, the owner of The Village Confectionary, knows the answer. Her candy shop doesn’t open for another 10 weeks, but has already accumulated over a million views and over 43K followers. Kate is building online investment early through her beautifully-scripted videos, prompting comments like “Ok, watched all your videos like I’m binge watching Netflix 😍 you are an amazing story teller. I’m here for your journey and cheering you on!” Below I share her tips for telling a small business story online and why she thinks of her social presence in seasons not posts.

I also cover:

• Four post ideas to try this week

• The best movie marketing isn’t about the movie

• Is Instagram’s new premium subscription available to brands?

• Why I’m going detective mode on Chanel’s social media

• An early bet on the MLB team with the best social this season

• New roles on the Link in Bio Job Board!

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