Tag Archives: marketing trends

Placemaking Downtown Marketing Trends 2023

January 23, 2023

The terms placemaking and place branding have been bandied about so much across so many industries they are now crossing over into the gen pop vernacular. But we, as place management practitioners, hold placemaking near and dear to our hearts. It’s a crucial element or overarching approach to nearly everything we do for our districts. And whether you’re responsible for operations, clean and safe, marketing, events and activations, programming, special projects, community engagement — or even social and MarCom — placemaking pervades nearly everything we do.

 

Before the pandemic, our co-founder Josh Yeager participated in the IDA Top Issues Council on Placemaking. Together with a whip-smart coalition of IDA members, practitioners, and some downright innovative folks, they collectively developed this publication on Place Branding (FREE for IDA Members) and produced and hosted IDA’s first-ever Placemaking and Place Branding Summit in Huntsville, AL. The pandemic put the brakes on subsequent summits, but the information, insights, and inspiration from the report are all still applicable, albeit perhaps with a few post-pandemic tweaks.

 

And that’s mainly what we’re exploring in this section. No need to say it again, but the pandemic up-ended so many aspects of our lives that, culturally, we’re a different bunch now. Downtowns and districts globally have different concerns, pressures, merchant support needs, dayparting, and foot traffic patterns. So within this section, we’ll delve into today’s world of placemaking and guide you through some examples of outstanding placemaking globally.

Also, never forget to check our website’s RESOURCES section for additional Trends Reports (like this on Illuminated Placemaking) and an archive of our bi-monthly e-blasts for place management practitioners and destination marketing organizations, the Bright Brothers Bulletin. 

 

EXPERIENTIAL

We talk all the time about “leaning into experiential” locally, but what does that mean? A great answer comes from Senior Business Director of Experiential, Victoria Sobel from lauded creative agency Giant Spoon. Known for groundbreaking and impressive, immersive experiences, Giant Spoon caught the world’s attention last year by turning upside down the Empire State Building (and 14 other iconic landmarks globally) to tease the launch of Stranger Things, season 4. If you haven’t seen the activation, click here to enter The Upside Down.

 

Sobel stated in a recent interview with Marketing Brew, “Consumers now look to brands to do more than just demo and sample—they want to participate, learn, celebrate, and ultimately, be part of a community through these shared moments. Marketers should lean into this opportunity to build brand love and loyalty through the creation of great, memorable experiences,” and that Empire State stunt definitely checks all the boxes!²⁰

 

Now, most urban place managers don’t have the kinds of big budgets that Netflix has to promote their districts. So what is possible? Plenty! Think about things you and your stakeholders can do, like:

  • Philly’s famed Pizzeria Beddia has a private omakase hoagie room. Based on the Japanese tradition of omakase, guests participate in the preparation of the food 
  • Host an in-shop experience à la Lush cosmetics, the famed British beauty brand
  • Sleepovers are an increasingly popular trend at museums, zoos, and cultural attractions
  • The Tinder Pride Slide was not only a trip, but it was also a feel-good fundraiser
  • This innovative lighting manufacturer, RBW, hosts lunch-and-learns with architects and designers (their target audiences) and interactive public events where participants assemble a lighting fixture and take it home
  • And then, of course, you have your vetted experiential business models like Build-A-Bear, Wine & Design (aka “tipsy painting”), and chefs classes…
  • Plus, experiential exhibits like The Van Gogh Immersive Experience, Luminarias in the Garden, the Museum of Ice Cream, and many more.
  • If you have an influx of new residents to your district, consider programming “locals only” fam tours, dine-arounds, or bike and burrito rallies!

Taking a deeper dive into experiential and illuminated placemaking, consider the Downtown San Francisco Partnership’s ‘Let’s Glow SF” event.* With two seasons under their belts, the downtown district tirelessly works to counter the media narrative that the central business district is dead. The media in SF itself loves to jump on this narrative to garner alarmist clicks. Admittedly San Francisco’s commercial real estate market has been particularly hard hit with pandemic pitfalls, like major tech companies moving to WFH as standard, Twitter getting hit for past due rent, and more.²¹

 

In an effort to keep office workers downtown after hours, (and spending money on local stakeholders), as well as draw locals, regionals, and visitors to SF’s extremely clean and safe downtown, the district launched Let’s Glow SF during holiday 2021 to much fanfare, plus a special honor from Mayor London Breed. The 10-day event massively increased foot traffic and drove an estimated $2.2M economic impact for the districts’ ratepayers. In 2022, Let’s Glow returned as the nation’s “largest holiday projection mapping festival,” featuring spectacular light shows at five iconic locations within the district, and 2022 knocked it even farther outta the park with a 42% increase in attendance and a 61% increase in visitor spending, creating a $3M economic impact for Downtown SF businesses.  

 

The district worked with a local visual arts company A3 Visual, and tapped local and international talent to design the interactive displays and light shows. In 2022, they offered a digital brochure and added a companion print guide to the festival that was distributed to local tourism and hospitality partners. It all adds up to quantifiable returns for the community, and even in San Francisco, $3M in economic impact is nothing to sniff at!

 

Get the full scoop on Let’s Glow SF on the Downtown San Francisco Partnership’s new website!

 

Now not every district has the budget, foot traffic, or wherewithal to produce this type of event, but a key component here was also dayparting.

 

DAYPARTING

Because of the pandemic, we now have disrupted foot traffic patterns, WFH and more flexible work schedules, different child care situations, and hybrid work scenarios creating fractured dayparts. In some cities, we’re seeing rebounds in daily commutes returning to some 80-90% of pre-pandemic levels, and in other places (like San Francisco), we may never return to a formerly-known norm. So what does this mean for districts?  Nearly every one of our clients has expressed challenges pertaining to this disruption.  It’s difficult for restaurants to staff for lunch without the office workers. Some cities have seen a “brain drain” of talent that can work virtually anywhere and have moved off-grid. And in some places, businesses are mandating a return to the office with varying degrees of success. So what to do?

 

Lean into dayparting.  And what that means is understanding when and where people are coming downtown, and programming and activating for those segments. It may not be the traditional “after-work happy hours” and coffee meetings anymore.  We highly recommend you track and analyze foot traffic patterns (with any of the myriad services like Springboard, Placer.ai, and others), to better understand when and how people are using your downtown amenities. Once you have a grasp on when, you can get the most bang for your buck, program for these visitors, and make sure it ties into your merchant support efforts. Some examples come to mind, like:

  • Downtown Tempe’s “Park After Dark” series takes palace after sunset during their blistering summer months
  • Recurring concert series during alternate dayparts like lunch, happy hour, and weekend evenings, like Downtown Pittsburgh Partnership’s “Downtown Sound” series
  • Consider round-ups of content/programming around mid-afternoon sweet treats and pick-me-ups like Visit Chandler cataloged
  • …or even consider go-at-your-own-pace programming like Downtown Austin’s “Mural Map,” Downtown Huntsville’s “Craft Beer Trail,” Downtown Excelsior Springs Chocolate Tour, wine tours, cocktail trails, and more.

 

CHANGE

Once the genie is out of the bottle, it’s never going back. We’re now three years into COVID-19 first hit, and the word “pivot” has been beaten like a dead horse (pardon the analogy). But let’s explore how some places lean into change. 

 

“Car-free” frees up space for people. Even before the pandemic, we saw the beginnings of car-free movements in cities around the globe. With Europe taking a decided lead over the U.S.’s love affair with the automobile, cities like Barcelona, Milan, Paris, and Stockholm are ahead of the curve in implementing Open Streets programs — bringing a more human scale to safe and exclusive streets for pedestrians.²² And stateside, we’ve seen massive inroads made in cities like Atlanta, Boulder, Columbus, Fort Collins, Fort Lauderdale, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Philly, Portland, and more.

 

Additionally, streeteries lending a slim lifeline to struggling restaurants during the pandemic, are now becoming permanent in cities like New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and many more, albeit not without contention. Some cities (and citizens) favor parking over pizza, and making streeteries permanent comes with a hefty price tag for safety, stability, insurance, and inspections. 

But in one of the most telling stories, the city of Toronto, CA recently announced some quantifiable evidence in favor of permanent street eats.  In late 2022 Toronto published their analysis on revenue generation from the same footprint of space, year-over-year. They found that had the traditional parking been in place, it would have generated a mere $3.7M, compared to the $181M produced by curbside patios during the same 13-week study period. That’s 49X more revenue generated for the city, and its citizens are seemingly stuffed and satisfied with the results as well!

 

Use of the public realm became even more imperative during the pandemic, often with surprising outcomes. One street in Jackson Heights, a dense, bustling neighborhood in Queens, NY closed 34th Avenue to traffic during the pandemic, and residents and businesses liked the expanded, outdoor space so much, the Department of Transportation agreed to make the change to an Open Street permanent. Managed by the 34th Ave Open Streets Coalition, this success story is but one example of thousands implemented worldwide due to COVID-19’s social distancing protocols and efforts to make places more liveable. 

 

Jackson Heights, NY resident and Department Chair at William Paterson University, Lauren Razzore-Cedeño endured most of the pandemic in this neighborhood. She shared personal insights with Bright Brothers Strategy Group, noting that, “What transpired and transformed 34th Avenue was honestly a lifesaver for us,” stated Razzore-Cedeño, a mother of two young children. 

 

She furthered that, “New York was the epicenter of the pandemic at the time. We had nowhere to walk because it wasn’t safe on the sidewalks packed with so many people… we couldn’t socially distance. So I would take the girls down there for fresh air. It started just as a place to get some space during COVID, but they developed programming on 34th, and the whole scene became a really amazing community space. Some neighbors weren’t happy with the changes, but it really provided a lifeline for me and my family.”

So whether for walking, playing games, yoga, dining, dancing, bike rallies or myriad other purposes, the trend toward creating safe, human-scale, car-free spaces within our districts and cities is a trend we’re likely continue to see develop in 2023 and beyond.

Video Downtown Marketing Trends 2023

January 23, 2023

If a picture says a thousand words, then a video tells the whole story, right? And video is everywhere these days, thanks to the fact that nearly all of us have a handheld recording device in the palm of our hands at all times. 

 As video technology and publishing technology have rapidly increased, conversely, our attention spans have shrunk exponentially. Sadly, it is now estimated that the average human attention span is eclipsed by that of a goldfish!  Purportedly, goldfish have a leg up (ahem, fin, perhaps?) on us humans, with an additional second of focus, so that’s Humans 8, Goldfish 9. The stats and research have been disputed, but there’s no discounting the fact that we have very short attention spans. Modern media is not helping the trend. 

 As evidenced by the popularity of ephemeral media like Snap, TikTok, Reels and more, we live in an era of hyper-paced media consumption, so video is a great way to get your message across in seconds. But there are a few things to note:

  • 73% of consumers prefer short form video¹⁴
  • Short form video has the highest ROI¹⁴
  • 30% of all short form videos are watched 81% pf the way through¹⁴
  • Users spend an average of 45 minutes at a time watching TikTok videos¹⁴
  • HubSpot considers short form video to be under 60 seconds, with the optimal length between 31-60 seconds¹⁵
  • 85% of marketers say short form videos are the most effective format on social media¹⁵

 So why do we still see so many long form videos being produced by organizations and marketers alike?  Ego, mainly is our gut take. But perhaps they’re trying to reach Baby Boomers. According to HubSpot, “56% of Gen Z, 54% of Millennials, 48% of Gen X, and 26% of Boomers say they discover new products most often on YouTube,”¹⁶

 

The kind of content and length of video you make really depends on your audience. HubSpot notes, “While each generation might watch fairly similar content, it’s important to remember that the goal is different. For Gen X, it might be to reminisce, while for Boomers, it’s to save time, and for Millennials and Gen Z, it could be to learn something new,” so the old adage, “read the room” definitely applies here as well.¹⁶

 But for many marketers and smaller organizations, professionally produced video is a luxury or out of reach for some budgets. Again, that handy-dandy device in your pants pocket can come in handy. A few things to note:

 

  • Not all video needs to be perfectly polished. In fact, 90% of consumers said that authenticity is important when deciding which brands they like and support¹⁷
  • 92% of marketers believe that most or all of the content they create resonates as authentic with consumers¹⁷
  • 51% of consumers say that less than half of brands create content that resonates as authentic¹⁷

So when you’re out and about in your district, keep your smartphone within reach, and don’t shy away from shooting some impromptu, casual and non-professional video on the fly. And telling your district’s story with short form video on social media can be as simple and as a quick intro video and hello with your favorite barista while grabbing your morning coffee, lunch out with coworkers, an afternoon break meeting people in the park, happy hour, or more. For many, video can provide a virtual snapshot of what it’s like in your district. Having video on hand also comes in handy when you need to tell your story as part of a campaign.

 

UPCYCLE

We like to say that “A little B-roll goes a long way”, and that’s especially true for short form video. A few things to love about B-roll:

  • Oftentimes, a media company (say the local paper, culture rag or TV station), will shoot and produce video for you as part of a larger package. It’s often a “value add” as part of larger campaign. Invest once, then repurpose, reuse, recycle and upcycle
  • If you’re doing a professional shoot, ask the videographer to get (and give you), plenty of B-roll that you can re-purpose later
  • Cut down 15-second snippets to use for TikTok, Reels, Twitter and more. Produce once, then repost or share across multiple channels
  • 15-second spots are also the perfect length for many streaming TV buys, YouTube and Google advertising and more (clearly your social channels)

 

But where else does B-roll come in handy?  PR. Most definitely PR. If you’ve ever tried to get the local media out to cover one of your events, it can be challenging — especially if you’re not buying an advertising package from them. Recently one of our colleagues shared with us an enlightening anecdote from a Top 20 U.S. metro.  On the very same day that she was holding a big press conference/media junket for the unveiling of a placemaking project that took nearly a year to develop, there was a massive auto accident about an hour outside the city. All the local TV stations were covering the accident live, and pulled the TV crews she was anticipating for her event. Not one to be discouraged, she and her assistant moved forward with the event, shot B-roll with their iPhones and sent it to local newsrooms instead.  And guess who got featured on that night’s news? Yep! 

With tapped newsrooms, reduced editorial staffs and slim-lined news crews, plus consumers’ short attention spans and their preference for authenticity – B-roll shot on your iPhone can be a lifesaver in your annual content calendar.

 

AUTHENTICITY

While we’re on the topic of authenticity and consumers’ preferences for the real deal, we wanted to call out some of our favorite campaigns from downtowns, districts, and DMOs showcasing the faces behind the community. A few come to mind, and while not video (these were photography-based), the essence is the same — keepin’ it real!

 Downtown Fort Collins (CO) did a very popular “People Behind the Plates” campaign to support their annual “Great Plates of Downtown” promotion. Great Plates of Downtown is a nearly two-decade long promotion, similar to the restaurant weeks many downtowns produce. There’s a prix-fixe menu at participating locations, with a portion of the proceeds donated locally. Downtown Fort Collins interviewed 25 employees from participating locations to genuinely showcase the veritable faces behind the plates. The result is approachable, credible, and personable and tells the story of a tight-knit downtown that supports its community. We absolutely loved this one!

 Another example comes from Downtown Tempe (AZ) in late 2020. During the full brunt of the pandemic, the BID ran a social campaign entitled “I Mask Up Because…” and featured interviews and quotes from local business owners wearing their masks, and describing what it meant to them and the community. With varying viewpoints, perspectives, and positive impacts, the campaign put a human face (albeit a masked one) in front of the district’s fans and followers and drove additional support to their struggling businesses during some of the darkest days of the pandemic. Kudos on a personalized campaign bringing awareness and driving support to their stakeholders!

So whether you’re shooting photos or videos for your district, keep authenticity, varying viewpoints, and stakeholder support top of mind. The more real you are helps tell your story, and pays off in dividends regardless of media type.

Branding Downtown Marketing Trends 2023

January 23, 2023

When it comes to branding, oh boy, do we have a lot to say. Certain adages come to mind: “A rose by any other name…”. Or one of our co-founder’s personal faves, “Your brand is not what you say it is — it’s what others say about you when you’re not in the room,” and these are loaded statements. Let’s unpack these a little. 

 

 It’s important to remember that your brand isn’t just logos and fonts and color palettes. It’s the sum total of your reputation, how well your website functions, the types of programming, placemaking, clean and safe, and support you provide your community, and so much more. And all ego aside, your brand is what the community thinks about you, not just the narrative you try to sell. So if the community thinks parking sucks downtown, then guess what?  Parking sucks downtown. And it’s now your job to dispel the myth or drive the narrative in a different direction.

 

 To start, let’s consider community engagement. We’ve seen tons of organizations go through the process of gathering the entire team, huddling, and brainstorming. While that might work in some scenarios, a top-down approach is rarely the best. And we’ve seen examples of community backlash when they weren’t invited to the table. So what’s the best approach to starting your branding process? Community engagement, of course.

 

If the agency you select to guide you through the branding process does not include community intercept surveys, polls, face-to-face intake, or other forms of community involvement and crowdsourcing, you’re doomed to fail. Make sure there’s an entire section in their proposal before you sign the contract! And any agency worth its salt will have a clearly outlined process for this and can explain how the results inform the branding process.

 

You only know what you know, so starting with a ground-up, grass-roots intake session should affirm and validate that your mission is aligned with the community’s needs — or help you identify areas of opportunity for improvement that can be addressed in your new brand.

 

Ask the community questions like:

  • How are we doing?
  • What do you like best?
  • What should our priorities be?
  • What would make you spend more time downtown?
  • What keeps you from doing X downtown?
  • What do want to see more of?
  • I like downtown because it’s XYZ…

 

Ask lots of qualitative questions. Offer a mix of formatting styles of questions. Lists of common adjectives describing downtown, also provide invaluable insights. 

 

This type of community engagement will inform your organization and provide answers to just what people say your brand is. You may or may not like everything you learn, but the feedback should be honest and help you understand controllable aspects of your brand. It also leads to a better understanding of your constituents’ needs, wants, and barriers to entry. 

 

Bright Brothers Strategy Group uses community engagement surveys as part and parcel of our Persona Development Process. The Personas are a perfect amalgamation of qualitative and quantitative data, and can then be used for:

  • Brand development
  • Marketing and Communications strategies
  • Program development
  • Placemaking
  • Website, social, and advertising copy
  • SEO
  • Economic Development
  • Events and Activations
  • … and a whole host of related district initiatives

 

When you start your processes by asking, listening, and engaging with the community, you better understand their needs and can develop a responsive organization that is in tune with the community and meets their needs.

 

But this is just the first step in developing your brand. Since the pandemic, we’ve seen a host of organizations attempt to rebrand their districts — with varying degrees of success. Your brand should be flexible, dynamic, multi-faceted, and able to connect with various communities locally and afar, and above all, be authentic. 

 

ELEMENTS

 

So you’ve done your due diligence. You’ve listened to the community, synthesized their feedback, and developed your new branding. That’s only part of the picture. What comes to mind when you think of your brand (logo, accents, font families, and color palette) is really your visual identity.  Your brand is still the total of your district and organization overall, your merchants and their associated brands, your streetscape and public realm, your level of cleanliness and attractiveness, your events, activations, and more. And overall, your website, the ratings and reviews of your district and merchants, and most importantly, the user-generated media coming out of your district are of paramount importance as well. 

 

Every photo, every video, every review and rating tagged with your district is part of your brand.  And remember that nearly 40% of Gen Z prefer TikTok and Instagram for search over Google! So that percentage gains exponential weight when you consider Millennial behaviors, Gen X actions, and more.

 

This is how people plan trips and travel now. This is how people determine where they want to live, work, shop, or relocate to. This is a significant part of your brand. And while you cannot control every aspect of every Yelp review, Facebook rating, Google My Business comment…etc. surrounding your district — you should be driving the narrative around what is controllable. Much of this starts with claiming/owning your Google My Business account for the district and actively managing it. 

 

But again, your brand is so much more than your visual identity and online text, images, and video. It goes beyond that, and one trend we kept major tabs on in the past year is sonic branding. 

 

ALL THINGS AUDIO

 

Aside from podcasts (and yes, you can easily buy media on podcasts), other audio opportunities exist as well. If you manage ads on Google, you can purchase 15-second spots (there’s that magic number again!) directly through your Google Ad Account that play as interstitials on YouTube and more.

 

Furthermore, to big brands and audio, the past few years saw some amazing innovations that will impact 2023 and beyond:

  • Gabe Alonso, who heads up digital platforms and community for PepsiCo, proposes that your brand needs to have a signature sound. From TikTok to podcasts and live audio to earworms, Gabe says that the audible element of your brand is just as important as how you look and feel. 
  • MasterCard launched a 10-layer sonic branding plan that includes numerous audio assets, and even an album of original songs.
  • Chip brand Tostitos (owned by PepsiCo) worked with a sonic branding agency to drill down to discover the brand’s signature sound, what the agency calls its “inevitable sound,” and incorporated the sounds of a salsa jar lid popping open, plus the rustling of a chip bag as parts of their sonic logo.
  • Fast-casual chain Panera developed not one, but four different versions of its new sonic logos in one-, three-, and six-second, as well as a long-form version, that all assist with brand recall and sales lift.
  • Social media management software Hootsuite launched a wild sonic logo along with a Mortal Kombat Easter Egg for fans.
  • The Wikimedia Foundation (yes, those brainy folks behind Wikipedia and more), held a competition to define The Sound of All Human Knowledge last year, in building their sonic logo. This is also a great example of community engagement with the contest.
  • Headspace and Orangetheory appointed new CMOs (Chief Music Officers) to their C-suites to invest in their sonic identities.

Social Media Downtown Marketing Trends 2023

January 23, 2023

It’s a new year, and as we welcome 2023, we hope you found solace, solemnitude and joy over the holidays. Now it’s “back to the grind” for most of us, and with the new year comes a time of research and planning for the months ahead. Ardent strategists, we’re always looking ahead and keeping tabs on the trends, research and data that impact districts like yours. Within this document, we’ve rounded up themes, trends and topics we see bubbling to the top from the worlds of urban place management, destination marketing, placemaking, urban planning and economic development.

Read on for tips and tools to make your job easier, validate your direction, spark your passion and pique your curiosity — all in the name of supporting your constituents, members and ratepayers. We’re keeping this pretty high-level, so if you want to learn more, dig deeper or would like a personal consultation to discuss what this might mean for your district, please give us a shout!

 

Social Media

The “tok” is the talk of the town. Well, the whole internet, really. And it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. Despite efforts at the federal and some local levels that ban the use of Chinese-owned TikTok app from municipal phones, for place-based marketers and your constituents, it’s a place you need to be.

 

The salad days of wild growth and engagement on Facebook and Instagram are gone, and they are now what they’ve always intended to be; highly targeted advertising platforms that deliver dollars to investors and shareholders. Period. Other than Instagram Reels, you’ll need to pay to play, but explosive growth, discovery, engagement and shopping (yes, shopping — we’ll get to that in a minute), are squarely on TikTok these days.

 

And when looking across all of our clients, plus industry trends, analyst insights and anecdotal feedback from merchant marketing sessions we’ve done with districts for their ratepayers — the upside cannot be ignored. Unlike more traditional social media channels, TikTok is all about discovery, and their algorithm works to bring you unprecedented growth and visibility for your district’s stories, events and placemaking, if you play your cards right. And that doesn’t mean you need slick, polished professional video. But you do need a crafty strategy, authenticity and a willingness to dedicate time, energy and resources to this white-hot platform.  

Some things to consider with TikTok:

 

  • 53% of TikTok users are over 30¹
  • 13.6% of US TikTok users have an HHI of $75K – $100K, and a whopping 40.2% have an HHI of $100K+!¹
  • Users skew 57% female to 43% male on their gender binary¹
  • On average, TikTok users spend 95 minutes per day on the platform and open it 8 times per day¹
  • TikTok users are 1.5x more likely to immediately purchase something they discovered on the platform compared to other social media platform users¹
  • TikTok users are 1.5x more likely to convince a friend or family member to buy a product they’ve seen on the app¹
  • TikTok users are 2.4x more likely to create a post and tag a brand after buying a product¹
  • 67% of users says that TikTok inspires them to shop — even when they weren’t planning to do so²
  • 40% of Gen Z users prefer using TikTok and Instagram for search over Google³
  • And anecdotally, we’ve gotten feedback from small businesses who attended our merchant marketing sessions who told us:
    • “I gained 12K+ followers in the past 24 hours!”
    • See next page for a case story!

 

STAKEHOLDER SUPPORT

Bright Brothers hosted a merchant marketing session for one of our downtown client’s stakeholders that focused on connecting with Gen Z, as well as best practices for TikTok. Soon after, we received the following, lovely email full of thanks and praise from one of the district’s small businesses:

 

“I started my account a day or two after your workshop. I didn’t link any accounts or use my contacts to find friends, so I started completely from scratch. About a month in, I started making bag sales online almost every day. Previously, I almost never had online bag sales. This past weekend one of my videos kind of took off, and I sold 30 bags in about 48hrs.

The video got over 100k views over the weekend and it seemed like everytime I refreshed my email, there was another order notification.

The craziest part is that I’ve spent 11 years making photos and videos for Facebook, IG, and YouTube and never have come close to getting any kind of traction like I’ve gotten with TikTok–literally in less than 3 months from opening my account.

Anyways, I just wanted to take a minute to tell you that I am singing your praises to people a couple times a day, and I have no idea how I’m going to fulfill all the orders.”

That’s a GOOD problem to have! 

*Courtesy of Werther Leather Goods, Norfolk, VA

 

TWITTER KILLER?

Despite all the brouhaha about the future of Twitter, the staple social networking service is limping along after business magnate Elon Musk finally acquired it in late October 2022. Since that time, it’s been a rocky road for the 280-character-long platform. Musk’s volatile takeover has included a back-to-office order that didn’t sit well with many employees, a mass exodus of staff and brain trust at nearly every level internally, a diaspora of advertisers resulting in millions in lost revenue, and thousands of users fleeing (or looking to leave) the formerly-favored platform.

 

But what comes next? There’s no clear consensus. With myriad upstart start-ups looking to take a bite out of Twitter’s market share, many are racing to bring betas to market and grow their user bases, including open source and collaborative communities like Mastodon, Post and others. 

 

Additionally, formerly-abandoned industry-leading apps like Tumblr (which experienced massive fallout and fell out of favor after the enforcement of stricter content policies surrounding adult content in 2018), are now seeing an upswing in users fleeing Twitter. Case in point, as reported by Tech.co in November 2022, “Tumblr, a still widely-used but ultimately more historical social media platform, saw 301,000 post-acquisition downloads compared to 170,000 for the same period beforehand.”⁴

 

Some, like WIRED’s Morgan Meaker posit that LinkedIn is the way to go, and Marketing Brew’s Jack Appleby put out some quantifiably discerning stats regarding cross-posting from Twitter to LinkedIn — and looked at the exponentially positive numbers he saw on the professional networking platform.⁵,⁶  

 

At the end of the day, there’s still no clear “Twitter killer” (aside from Musk himself), and the drama will continue to unfold, so any singular replacement probably remains to be seen in 2023.

 

 

YouTube Killed the TV Star

May 13, 2016

It’s no secret that YouTube and other forms of online video have been taking the lead over TV in recent years. This is especially true for Millennials, which have surpassed Baby Boomers as the nation’s largest living population with 75.4 million people. In this article by Todd Spangler he discusses has YouTube has become the favored media among Millennials. With such a huge increase in original content that can be watched at our own conveniences are our regularly programmed shows going to be a thing of the past?

The reason YouTube has found such great success doesn’t just have to do with the ability to stream videos at the viewers own convenience. Beyond breaking the tether to scheduled programming and the ability to stream videos from where ever and whenever viewers want, YouTube has managed to offer content that is more relevant and authentic to its viewers, specifically millennials. 67% of millennials said digital delivers content they can relate to vs. 41% for TV and 62% of the survey respondents said digital content makes them “feel good” about themselves vs. 40% reported for TV.

Although Millennials are attracted to the approachability of YouTube, where everyone has the ability to post original content, what is really engaging this audience is video with a professional aesthetic. For 13-17-year-olds, 46% are more likely to open content that looks professional and polished and 57% for those who are 18-24. So, creating polished, visually appealing quality content still reigns even in an era where everyone with a smartphone has the ability to shoot high-res images and video.

So what does this shift from traditional video to digital sources say about how consumers are influenced? The days of big name movie and TV stars being the biggest influencers are on their way out. Millennials are much more likely to put their purchasing power (all $200 billion of it) behind products supported and promoted by YouTube stars and other social media influencers than they are a TV or movie star. In fact, the Defy study found that about 63% of Millennials would be more willing to purchase a product or brand mentioned by a YouTube star and with an impact that big, brands are definitely listening.

When thinking about this shift in the way Millennials digest digital content is there a way that you could be leveraging your brand or product through these channels? With the rise of the YouTube and social media celeb an increase in influencer marketing has also been ushered in. Knowing the influencer that your audience follows and respects could be a major key to reaching them and creating lasting brand loyalty.