take that creative risk

i used to think social was a puzzle you could solve. learn the edit, find the sound early, post before the trend dies. repeat until promoted.

now everyone has the same trending audio, the same capcut templates and the same "30 hooks that convert" google doc... and this year the platforms started shipping their own ai assistants to tell you what "works." which means what works is about to look exactly like everything else.

so the question i care about has changed. it's less "what's the next trend?" and more "why does anything work at all?"

three jobs, sometimes in the same afternoon

i've been the trends person at tiktok, briefing global agencies on what was coming before it came. i've been the agency strategist writing the deck that wins the business. and i've been the one holding the phone in a parking lot at golden hour, shooting the ad myself because the budget said so.

each seat sees something different:

the strategist sees why people care
the social manager sees what the feed rewards this week
the creator sees what can actually get made by friday

most bad social comes from one seat talking without the other two. a strategy nobody can shoot. a content calendar with no idea in it. a gorgeous video that answers a question nobody asked.

the good stuff happens where all three agree. that's the job now.

nobody buys the product. they buy who they get to be.

when anyone can make a decent reel, output stops being the advantage. interpretation is.

people aren't really buying leggings, lip gloss or an electrolyte packet. they're buying a version of themselves... the disciplined one, the effortless one, the one who knew about it first. content is what a brand posts. culture is what people use to build a personality.

so before i write a brief, i try to answer four things:

finish the sentence: "when you buy this, you get to be the kind of person who ___."
what codes does this audience use to recognize each other? the words, the aesthetics, the rituals, the creators they trust.
what tension are we resolving? health vs. treat yourself. effortless vs. trying very hard to look effortless.
what's the behavior? not "awareness." a real thing a human does... save it, gift it, wear it, defend it in the comments.

if the brief can't answer those, no hook is going to save it.

the comedian in me hates a predictable punchline

i also do standup, which turns out to be the most useful marketing training i've ever had. and the cheapest, if you don't count therapy.

comedy runs on expectation. you set up a pattern so the audience thinks they know where it's going... then you go somewhere else. that gap is the laugh. social works the same way. the hook is the setup, and if the payoff is exactly what the viewer predicted, their thumb is already gone.

that's my problem with over-optimized content. when every brand follows the same best practices, the feed becomes one long setup with no punchline. so i look for the turn:

start with a familiar format, then take it somewhere it's never been
go slow and quiet when the feed is fast and loud
put an unexpected person on an unexpected topic
do the one thing your category would never do

this isn't weird for the sake of weird. a twist that doesn't come from something true about the brand is just a gimmick with a budget. but a little strategic weird is one of the few things that still stops a scroll.

the product is a post too

some of the best "content" i've seen never ran as an ad. it's the bottle people leave out on the counter. the jar that photographs well. the pop-up line people film because standing in it is the point.

packaging, a launch event, a strange little retail moment... these keep working after the media budget runs out, because customers do the posting for you. so when i plan a shoot, i'm not only asking what the brand should post. i'm asking what people will want to post about the brand, and how to make that easier.

one afternoon of shooting should become a week of content. one good product moment can become months of it.

how i try to stay sharp

the algorithm is a great place to find out what's trending and a terrible place to find out why. so i keep a media diet that has nothing to do with my feed: culture critics, people who write about media and money, newsletters about teenagers i will never fully understand, books about how the internet flattened everyone's taste.

the good insights rarely come from marketing content. they come from noticing two unrelated things in the same week and wondering if they're secretly the same thing.

and before any campaign, i ask myself:

what do people actually use us for?
what would our competitors never do?
can we shoot it, and can we cut it four different ways?
will anyone want to post about it without being paid to?

no big closer

i was going to end with a big, rousing line about the future of social. but that felt a little too on-format.

so here's the short version... stop asking "what should we post?" and start asking "what do people use us for?" the answer is almost always more interesting than the content calendar.

anyway. that's the post.

hi, it's me... your target audience

i'm on the couch. it's 11:40pm. i have a show on in the background that i'm not watching, and my thumb is doing the thing where it moves faster than my brain.

you've spent months on a brief about me. you gave me a persona name. you decided i'm "value-driven" and "digitally native." cute.

i want to help, so here's what i'd tell you if you could hear me over the sound of me scrolling past your ad. no offense. some of it is your fault, some of it is mine, and all of it is in the comments if you know where to look.

i can't touch your product, so make me feel it

you keep telling me what it does. 24-hour hydration. 30% more absorbent. engineered with something that sounds like a planet.

i don't feel any of that. i feel the crunch. the pour. the lid that clicks shut a little too satisfyingly. the way something looks good enough to leave on my counter instead of hiding it under the sink.

and please don't assume i don't care because your category is boring. i never thought about which sponge or showerhead i bought until someone gave me a reason to. now i have opinions. strong ones. you can be the reason too. you just have to stop describing the product and start letting me experience it through this little rectangle.

i already told you what i think

you paid for a focus group. i'm right here. i left you a comment last tuesday. it was in all caps and spelled wrong, but it was heartfelt.

me and my people describe your product in very specific ways. we have nicknames for it. we have hacks you didn't invent. we argue about the right way to use it under every video you post, and those arguments are basically free market research.

if three of us describe your thing the same weird way, please just use our words. it'll sound more like us than anything your team wrote in a conference room. we'll notice. we'll feel seen. we might even buy two.

i trust my people more than your people

i like creators. i follow a lot of them. but when someone posts their third sponsored "holy grail" of the week from a villa i'll never visit, i know it's a job. i don't hold it against them. i just don't believe them as much.

you know who i do believe? the girl in my group chat who's been using your stuff for three years and won't shut up about it. the coworker who swears by it. the random person in the comments with 40 followers and a very detailed review.

put us in the frame sometimes. invite the customers, not just the influencers. hand the mic to someone who actually paid for the thing. when i see someone like me in your content, i don't think "ad." i think "wait, i could be in this."

i don't want to like you, i want to look forward to you

you're everywhere. every app, every break, every sidebar. i've seen your ad so many times i could do it as a monologue. that's not making me want you. it's making me hit "not interested."

the brands i actually love make me wait a little. they drop something and it's gone. they have a thing they do every year that i count down to like a holiday... i look forward to my spotify wrapped more than some of my birthdays.

you don't need everyone to like you. you need a few of us to be weirdly attached. give us something specific to want, make it feel a little hard to get, and we'll do the rest. we'll explain you to our friends for free.

i can tell when nobody made it

i don't know exactly how, but i can tell. the caption that sounds like a press release had a baby with a fortune cookie. the model with one too many fingers. the "relatable" post that relates to absolutely no one i know.

here's the thing... i'm not mad that you use tools. i use them too. i'm just not going to care about something that nobody cared enough to make. if it feels like it took you four seconds, i'll give it about four seconds.

show me a person behind it. a real opinion. a weird choice somebody fought for in a meeting. the stuff that feels a little handmade is the stuff i stop for, because it's the only thing in my feed that doesn't look like everything else in my feed.

anyway, my show's back on

i know your job is hard. you have a calendar to fill, a boss who wants reach and a dashboard that only speaks in percentages. i'm not asking for perfect.

just make me feel something. use my words. show me people like me. give me a reason to look forward to you. and make it feel like a human was in the room.

do that and i'll stop. i'll watch it twice. i'll send it to the group chat with no caption, which is the highest honor i can give.

love, the thumb that almost kept scrolling