💌: Alabama Rush, Content Tips, & Oreo

👋Hey everyone, and Happy Sunday! Shoutout to all the new folks joining us this week! Welcome to the club! Reply back and introduce yourself, and let me know what you're up to in the marketing world!

This week’s edition feels extra packed and there are quite a few practical links that can help with various content, advertising, and email strategies.

Let’s go on our Sunday adventure, shall we?

Content + Email Marketing

• Here’s a great Twitter thread from Amanda Natividad (@amandanat) which is a cheat sheet for 12 easy ways to generate content ideas. Bookmark this one because you can always come back to it when you feel like you’re out of ideas.
• Download this PDF and save it for your next email marketing strategy session. Send Awesome Email by Doug Dennison (of MailNinja) teaches the basics and helps you get results. Doug was kind enough to make it free for a limited time.
• Speaking of email, fall is one of the busiest seasons for email marketers, since the rest of the year is full of holidays. Here’s some inspiration for your Fall email campaigns.
• LinkedIn is looking to sharpen up their toolkit for creators, and here’s an inside look at their plans and how to take advantage. LinkedIn is a very “starved for content” platform. All things (like followers) being equal, If you make the same post there as you do on Twitter, the odds are highly in favor of the LinkedIn post getting more engagement.
• Here’s a few dos and don’ts for email marketing — particularly aimed at small businesses.

Social and Creators

• Onlyfans is now in the App Store — but it’s actually safe for work. We mentioned before how the platform wants to be seen as a platform for creators — not just for adult content. They have a new product called OFTV which you can find in the App Store which features “safe” content like cooking shows, exercise programs, etc. The catch? It’s not going to make any money, and Onlyfans can’t afford to drop adult creators yet — after all, they helped drive OF’s revenue 533% higher YoY in 2020. Update: Onlyfans is now going to ban explicit content, due to pressure from investors and payment processors and banks. This feels like a bad move on their part. Sex workers basically built their platform, but now they’ll have to find other places to go.
• Facebook is sharing data to prove it’s not a political hellhole. Uhhh, good luck? So, what’s that all about? Facebook is now publishing a quarterly report to show what content is most popular. It contains most-viewed domains, links, pages, and posts. The goal for the report is obviously transparency, but if you dig deep, it just makes the platform seem like spam central and more of a hellhole in general, not just a political one.
• iOS app tracking rates are still staggeringly low. But, in France the opt-in rate is currently at 30%, which is almost twice the rate here in the USA. The reason the opt-in rate is higher in France could simply be chalked up to font size and the fact that “Ask app not to track” in French is much longer and barely fits the popup screen. Check this article for more.
• Clubhouse got hacked, and the info that was gleaned was every user’s phone number. Yikes, this app can’t catch a break lately.
• Here are 5 things you might not know about Pinterest by the good folks at Buffer and @2lsmarketing. The first one is quite interesting: Pinterest is more of a search engine than it is a social media platform.
• The #BookTok trend on TikTok is driving sales in brick and mortar book stores. Is there anything TikTok can’t do?
• Speaking of trends, this week, the University of Alabama’s sorority’s took over TikTok with #BamaRush. Just in case you wanted a first-hand look at Rush week and don’t actually want to go to Alabama. As of this writing (Wednesday), TikToks using #RushTok have already amassed 80.4 million views, with 62.2 million views for #AlabamaRush. Sheesh. Here’s how Kendra Scott is capitalizing on the trend.
• Emoji in email subject lines was once a pretty on-trend thing. Now you might want to rethink it, depending on your audience. It would appear Gen Z has adopted new meanings for some emoji, while the rest of us stick with traditional meanings. Hey, every generation rewrites language, even if that language is all smiley faces.
• Instagram Reels are turning one year old soon. Instead of buying it a smash cake, have a look at this ultimate guide to Instagram Reels and get your strategy right for the rest of ’21.
• Even Reddit is trying to capitalize on TikTok’s popularity by rolling out a short-form video feed button on its iOS app.
• Billboard introduced a chart based on music from TikTok, called Song Breaker. The goal is to acknowledge the impact of the creator community. Pretty dope. S/o to @iamaliceophelia for the tip.

Ads, SEO, and Copywriting

• 1-800-Contacts is suing Warby Parker over the use of trademarked terms in paid search ads. The claim is that Warby Parker ran ads for the term “1-800-Contacts” but those ads actually went to the Warby Parker website instead. The suit claims Warby Parker “devised a plan to confuse consumers” instead of “developing its brand awareness related to the online sales of contacts.” This is pretty shady, but what’s even worse is that Google allows this behavior. At work, I spend more on buying our own company’s brand name than any other ad group — simply because competitors are also buying our brand name. If you wondered how Google makes so much money, this is it. Which is also why some people believe Google Ads is not for small businesses anymore.
• But hey, making Google happy is the lay of the land if you’re a digital marketer. If you’re an SEO or are aiming to learn more about it, one thing that is an always handy part of the toolkit: knowing the intent behind search keywords. @lazarinastoy shared a Data Studio dashboard to help you classify your keywords. Check it out!
• SEMRUSH put together this handy list of 14 tips to write effective copy. Check it out next time you need to write copy for lead gen or ad purposes (or just in general!)

Branding and trends

• Outside temps are still checks weather app hot AF, but that won’t stop brands from starting their pumpkin spice rollouts. According to surveys, more Americans want the flavor to drop earlier than ever before.
• Oreo switched up their packaging to feature other brands on the outside in an effort to keep kids away from the cookies. It’s a limited edition program, and I guess it’s a pretty natural way to do some cross branding and promotion.
• What do you do when you have the hottest air conditioning available (sorry, I tried a pun there and failed) and you won’t have stock for months? You keep it cool and keep marketing. Ok, I tried again and failed. Just read this article about July, a DTC air conditioning company, and how they continue marketing in the face of a hindered supply chain.

Just for fun

• Remember when soft drink companies and McDonald’s use to run epic contests where you could trade points for awesome prizes? Once, Pepsi offered a fighter jet as the ultimate prize for just such a contest. One guy amassed enough points to get the jet, and then sued Pepsi when they wouldn’t give it up. Here’s the story.

That’s it for this week! I appreciate you reading along for another week, and I’ll see you next Sunday!

-- Forge

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