How I Added 50% TikTok Following Overnight (No, Really.)

ALSO: A clever candy promotion ties Personalities to Playlists. Is the next great marketing opportunity already on your phone? More people buying online means more bricks and mortar businesses failing

February 26, 2021

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M&M's Matches Personalities to Playlists

The candy brand M&M's is launching a multichannel marketing campaign tied to Spotify. 

Each specially marked package has a code inside, when you scan it with a phone, opens a Spotify playlist.

Which sounds pretty basic, until you learn there are 28 different packages — each pointing to their own different playlist.

The package marked “Slay Girl” goes to a song list of female musicians.

The one marketed “Have a great day pretending to do work," opens up music meant to “make you feel like a boss," according to the company.

Quoting MarketingDive.com:

“The integration of those messages with a matching playlist on Spotify bridges the physical and digital elements of the effort, and adds another dimension to the customer experience (CX) that helps to reinforce positive feelings toward the brand, especially among its target audience of younger consumers who are early adopters of audio streaming.”

The bar codes are Spotify’s invention — they came up with them four years ago.

Another interesting use we reported on earlier, an Italian pasta brand that had different playlists tied to the amount of time it would take to cook each package.

Why Aren’t We All Using Messages?

That M&M’s promotion is being called Messages by the brand — that’s not a consumer-facing name, just what the marketing team internally calls it.

When I first found out about this promotion, I didn’t think they were talking about packs of candy, I thought they meant those sticker packs in Apple’s Messages app — the one you use to text message people.

Sticker packs are sets of static or animated images that people use to drop into conversations.

I have a pack [Apple Store link] specifically meant for adult kids talking to their aging parents, with lines like “Did You Look That Up on Google First?”

I find them hilarious.

My 78-year-old mom, less so.

I’ve never understood why brands haven’t taken advantage of that more.

It’s easy to put sticker packs on the phone of your fans — in fact, if you have an iPhone app, they automatically get them. That’s how they’re distributed.

You don’t need to write any extra code… you don’t need to pay Apple anything for it..

In fact, Apple has a tutorial video on its web site showing how to get stickers out there.

The video isn’t even five minutes long.

If you have an iPhone app — why aren’t you dropping stickers into it? It’s literally free advertising.

More Bricks-and-Mortar Retailers Bail Out

The large-scale shift to online purchasing continues to wreck havoc on bricks and mortar chains:

  • The electronics giant Best Buy said yesterday [CNN story] it laid off 5,000 workers this month, and the growing shift to online commerce has forced its hand and it’s planning to close more bricks-and-mortar stores this year. It says it expects 40% of its sales to be online this year. That number was less than 20% only two years ago.

  • And the Fry's Electronics chain this week announced it was closing all of its stores — immediately, putting itself out of business. On its web site the company said:

“After nearly 36 years in business as the one-stop-shop and online resource for high-tech professionals… Fry’s Electronics has made the difficult decision to shut down its operations and close its business permanently as a result of changes in the retail industry and the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Cision Buys Brandwatch

The social media listening platform Brandwatch has been acquired by Cision for $450 million.

Cision used to be mostly known as a media contact database, but this certainly branches their offerings out. Now, they’re in spaces from PR to marketing to online engagement. 

The deal should close by June and comes with the content discovery tool BuzzSumo, which Brandwatch bought four years ago.

How I Added 50% TikTok Following Overnight (No, Really.)

Last night, I went to bed with about 900 TikTok followers. I woke up pushing 1,400. And how did I boost my following by 50% literally overnight?

I’m going to tell you.

I told people to follow me.

That’s the secret. 😉

At the end of the video, I put a little animated arrow pointing at the Plus sign people tap to subscribe, and that was it!

That little arrow is the “Smash Like and Ring the Bell” of TikTok.

And that video, by the way, got a decent amount of views — but it was by no stretch among my most popular. 

So there you go. The secret to getting people to follow you: Ask them to.

Like I’ll do here — follow me on my TikTok account.

I’m doing daily digital marketing tips there.

Have a restful weekend, and I’ll talk to you Monday.

Tod

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