Social Media Marketing Shouldn't Solely Be Based On Vibes, I Guess

Jack Westerkamp, Co-Founder/Social Media Novice/Moo Deng Hater

What up what up.

We just released an interview with Kate Kenner Archibald. Kate spent her career dominating the marketing scene at Estee Lauder (idk how to pronounce “Lauder”, FYI) and then decided to become the CMO of a tech company called Dash Hudson. 

Dash Hudson pretty much gives social media marketing folks all the data and analytics they need to drive informed decisions on what to post on social media. That’s as simple as I can put it.

I was totally blown away by what it means to be in social media marketing today. From an outsider perspective, it really feels like brands or creators are just kinda throwing posts out there and seeing what sticks. I think that is still a part of the gameplan, but since when were people able to predict which posts were going to get higher engagement? Kate was blowing my mind. I was like this meme of Mr. Krabs.

shmood

I wouldn’t consider myself a big “numbers” guy, despite what you’d expect from someone who graduated with a degree in finance. But when it comes to analytics in social media, the numbers are literally all that matters. Did your post get engagement and impressions or did it not? Things seemingly get more views than others at random, but it sounds like there is some method to the madness.

Nobody can predict what the next trend will be. I hate moo deng, but there is no algorithm or data analysis that could say that that damn hippo was going to take over the internet. With that said, there probably is some level of predictive analytics that can go into whether or not your brand’s “moo deng” appreciation post will or will not do well. And that is kinda wild to me. 

BOOOOOOOOO

During our interview, Kate was pretty adamant on the fact that social media marketing is still an art and a science. Everyone in social media marketing says you have to “read the room” and I agree with that. But once that room is read, it feels like a waste of time to not look at your analytics to get a sense of whether or not what you’re going to post is going to take off. 

POV: you’re reading The Room

There are plenty of tricks to drive engagement in social media, including click bait, colors, a hook at the beginning of a video, etc. And it really makes me wonder how predictable we all are as content consumers. My guess is that the predictive analytics that companies like Dash Hudson use will only get more sophisticated. I envision a world where we know exactly what words to say in a script, exact lighting based on the video, and everything in between (if we don’t already). 

With that said, the algorithm and human behavior change in an instant. What drives engagement one day may not apply a week from now when people get bored of the “old way” (it happened 10 minutes ago). When I doom scroll, I catch myself skipping past those kitchen ASMR videos of someone chopping an onion, whereas I would have been all over it a few months ago. That could also be a me problem. I’m kinda out on onions these days. I feel like everyone’s favorite thing to do is say that they love grilled onions on their burger in an effort to remind everyone they know how to grill onions. So annoying. We get it, Bobby Flay, you have a grill. 

So when people stop liking onions on their feed, what happens then? You need to have the creativity as a social media marketer to test out the next trend or test out other ways to engage your audience. Because finding that next “thing” and experimenting with new, creative ways to engage an audience is so powerful. Once you find that “thing”, now you can refine your posts using analytics to drive the most possible engagement.

Kendall Dickieson is really good at understanding and applying this stuff, and she crushes it for food brands all the time. So go check her out, because I am just a dude that interviewed someone who was really smart.

And get lost, Moo Deng.

- Jack