Your campaign needs more on-ramps

Social media platforms no longer show posts in chronological order, so why do we still roll out campaigns as if they do?

Every fall I look forward to a very specific deck. It’s called Social Signals and is published by strategist Matthew Stasoff. It’s usually something like 400 slides long and feels like one of the few true reflections of the state of social. (He was talking about clipping way before the Twitter bros.) Matthew is the Group Director, Social Strategy and Creative at Anomaly and has spent the past 10+ years shaping how global brands show up online and IRL. I like the way his brain works and asked him if he’d be open to contributing to the newsletter. Thankfully he said yes.

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.

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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.

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