SOCIAL MEDIA
Here are the top 2021 subreddits, tweets, and memes
Yesterday, Reddit, Twitter, and Google all released their recaps of 2021:
- Reddit published a list of its most popular subreddits, posts, AMAs, and more during the year.
- Twitter released a 2021 version of their “Best of Tweets” page, which highlights the most popular brand Tweets, hashtags, etc.
- Google has released “Google’s Year in Search,” which details the year’s most popular searches. The report wouldn’t be complete without highlighting the most searched memes during the year (can you guess who came on top?)
Why we care: There’s a marketing lesson or two you can learn from these yearly recaps. Reddit’s most popular AMA, for example, came from a lobster diver who had recently been inside a whale.
Looks like people still like reading crazy stories (check out today’s poolside for another one…)
E-COMMERCE
Will product images go 3D in 2022?
eBay certainly thinks so.
The company has added a feature that allows sellers to “scan” their sneakers and generate a 3D replica. eBay will then use that 3D image in product listings, allowing buyers to interact with it.
Now, this will only be available to a select group of sneaker sellers, but we can’t help but wonder…
Are sneakers just the beginning? eBay appears to be using sneakers as a test bed to see if these 3D listings will be successful (read: improve sellers’ conversion rates). If they do, we wouldn’t be surprised if more 3D listings appear in additional categories.
Will 2022 be the year where 3D product listings will replace their 2D counterparts? Only time will tell.
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MARKETING
Brand reputation strategy: don’t deal with negative reviews
Reputation management is often seen as fighting or reducing negative content.
However, it’s more helpful to approach your brand reputation with a different perspective.
Negative reviews, opinions, and comments are part of the game. You can’t avoid them.
What you can do instead is to overwhelm negative sentiment with so much positive content from others, that a 1-star review becomes irrelevant.
Easier said than done.
But Tom Whatley shows us some strategies to accomplish this.
Let’s give a look at this blog post from CXL.
Find your audience of superfans: Not all of your customers are raving fans of your brand.
Superfans don’t just buy what you do, but why you do it.
They are your brand’s advocates and spread positive content about you.
Once you know where your raving fans – or potential ones – hang out, and what language they use, you can tap into opportunities to get in touch with them:
- Leverage relevant hashtags.
- Attend popular trade shows.
- Make appearances on or sponsor well-liked podcasts.
- Team up with influencers or publications.
Build a community: You can build your own community using Facebook groups. When you give a place to your followers to hang out, you can:
- Improve user engagement.
- Collect product improvement feedback.
- Develop an audience of superfans.
Tap into an existing community: Reddit can be a powerful platform here. Find the most relevant subreddits to your brand and engage with other posts, or start your own threads.
Use your personal brand: There are many companies whose reputation has been boosted by the personal brand of its founder.
Take Gary Vaynerchuck for instance. He’s everywhere constantly sharing content, expanding his personal brand, and promoting his companies.
A personal brand requires authenticity and consistency. But it makes it easier to connect with other influential personalities in your space.
You can go on interviews, or partner up with other influencers. There are unlimited chances of doubling your audience.
Growing the positive sentiment toward your brand is the best way to protect it from negative reviews.
SPONSORED BY INSIGHTS
How to crush SEO like Wise, a $7B FinTech
Wise receives more than 9M organic users per month. And a huge chunk of their traffic isn’t branded nor is it going to their blog posts.
How? They focus on three types of content:
- Currency exchange
- Banking FAQs and information
- Lifestyle articles (like how to pay property tax in Spain, for example)
Check out more of Wise’s marketing secrets in our 67-page deep dive by joining Insights. Ten total deep dives are waiting for you!
THE CREW’S INSIGHTS
How Morning Brew got their first 100k subscribers
College students.
Yeah, really: The team at Morning Brew trained a small group of students to bring in subscribers to the newsletter. Those students went on to refer thousands of people to Morning Brew.
Most audience-focused businesses don’t do this. So, why did it work for Morning Brew?
- Social rewards, not money. Paying students didn’t work. Creating an exclusive group, and promoting the opportunity as a resume-builder, did.
- Working with only the best ambassadors. Once someone had referred more than 50 readers, they’d work with the Morning Brew team to scale up.
- Don’t expect ambassadors to do everything. Morning Brew used students. Many of these students weren’t reliable – but with the right planning, the overall strategy still worked.
What it means: Consider this approach as you grow an audience. Instead of a spray-and-pray strategy, find the people who are doing a great job promoting your product or business.
Create a rewarding social structure and train those people to get them to the next level.
This insight came from our Morning Brew deep dive, in our Insights community. Check out Insights here.
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TIKTOK: China was first, the West is next. TikTok is pushing more shoppable livestreams on its platform.
APPLE: You’ll like this if you have an app on the App Store. Apple has released two new tools for optimising product pages.
AMAZON: You’re not alone if you’ve noticed that Amazon’s search results are increasingly becoming pay-to-play.
ADVERTISING: Apple has supposedly made a “quiet truce” with companies like Facebook and Snapchat to allow them “looser” adherence to its ad privacy rules.
TWITTER: The company is testing a different layout for its Explore tab. If the overall layout reminds you of one popular short video app, well, you’re not alone.
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BRAIN TEASER
Look in my face, I am somebody. Look in my back, I am nobody.
What am I?
You can find the solution here.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things marketers like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
Dozens of camels barred from Saudi beauty contest for using Botox
Who knew that camel beauty contests have stricter rules than human beauty contests?
Saudi authorities have conducted their most extensive crackdown on camel beauty contestants. The reason? Those camels received botox injections (along with some other “artificial” touch-ups).
40 camels were disqualified in total.
A serious competition: This is a popular contest in South Arabia where the breeders of the most beautiful camels compete for $66 million in prize money.
Which explains all the fuss about botox, face lifts, and other cosmetic enhancements (which are strictly prohibited by the contest organisers).