💌: Adrian’s Kickback, Landing Page Roasts & More

Forge / Jordan Chavis -

This weekend is a U.S. holiday so hopefully those of you in the states get some rest or do something fun (and hopefully catch up on this week’s edition on Tuesday). For everyone else, welcome to this week’s edition of Forgematic.

This week I’m trying a new format and breaking up the stories into themes.

Let me know what you think!

🤳 Social Media

  • How a 17-Year-Old’s Birthday Party Became the Biggest Thing on the Internet. What Happened at Adrian's Kickback? — The New York Times
  • TikTok, the Fastest Way on Earth to Become a Food Star — every week I’m blown away by some new thing on TikTok. This week it’s a generation of young chefs who don’t need to go pay dues at restaurants. Welcome to FoodTok.
  • Ok, I swear once again this is not a TikTok newsletter. But when it’s one of the building blocks for Olivia Rodrigo’s success, you gotta respect it. This article is a great breakdown of how her new album, Sour, is breaking records. It all started on TikTok.
  • And Here is a bonus read, with a quote I feel is insane and accurate at the same time: “TikTok is merciless — it is a constant, unending flume of new posts, of new features, there is no breathing room, there is only more content, with seemingly everybody blowing up and going viral except you. There are no shares, no reposts, only the ability to stitch onto someone else’s (where you add onto someone else’s video) or duet with them (IE: you do a video in time with theirs), which means there is no way to go viral other than by the hand of the algorithm.”
  • Instagram Reels got a new feature this week: Insights. As Instagram tries to make Reels more appealing than TikTok, they need ways to differentiate. Giving insights and analytics is a good way to do that and could give it an edge for marketers (if not creatives). Still, it’s not going to help Reels turn into something that influences pop culture like the stories above.
  • Twitter previews Ticketed Spaces, says it’ll take a 20 percent cut of sales - downside: there isn’t much money left for the actual creators and hosts.

💰 Advertising

🎨 Web design and conversion optimization

📊 Strategy

  • Do you work in B2B marketing? This article is for you: The real audience for your marketing is not the C-Suite. Find out who to target in the article (spoiler: Director level and below). I work in B2B marketing and I’ve seen first hand the folly of only targeting C-suite execs in previous jobs I had.
  • Here’s an awesome thread on how influencer marketing works and how it’s core to DTC (direct to consumer) brand strategy.

🥳 Interesting reads

  • That sinking feeling you feel because there’s too much going on, and you just can’t get your brain to work? Creating content all the time makes you feel the same way, and all the influencers are burned out too.
  • For fun: how to check your email in 1984. That’s a lot to go through to read messages. Now we don’t even want to get email (except this one of course)

That’s all for this week. Thank you as always for reading and please keep sharing the newsletter with your friends in marketing or friends that want to know about Marketing.

Forge