What did you guys think of this season of Emily in Paris? 

• Loved it! Marketers deserve this pop culture moment. 

• Hated it! It gets the industry all wrong…

• Nuanced other opinion! I’m an independent thinker, baybee. 

Read on for a Q+A with the one and only 🚨 Amanda Natividad! 🚨

Also in this issue: December hiring data, influencer marketing trivia, and a dash of wedding planning.

EXPERT Q&A

3 things Amanda Natividad learned from SparkToroing her own Twitter

Amanda Natividad is VP of marketing for audience research startup SparkToro, and on Twitter, she has a major audience herself. 

58K people follow her insights on marketing (and cooking — she’s a trained chef!). 

But before our call, she had never used SparkToro’s platform to analyze her Twitter audience. 

That’s normal, honestly. Marketers typically use SparkToro for work, to scout out under-the-radar channels their target audience already follows, from niche influencers and podcasts to media outlets (sponcon anyone?). 

It’s multipurpose, though. So for this Q+A, we asked Natividad to SparkToro her own account. Here’s what she learned.

Her followers care about email marketing.

The finding: 4.2% of her audience use the phrase “email marketing” frequently.

How SparkToro knows: It crawls her followers’ public social posts for recurring terms.

Why it matters: Amanda hasn’t tweeted much about email marketing, but she knows quite a bit about it. “Maybe it’ll be useful if I share some insights on my newsletter,” she said. 

(It’s called The Menu, and hit 2K subscribers in December — despite spending most of its run as a “semi-secret.”)

They listen to startup and growth podcasts.

The finding: Her followers’ favorite podcasts are…

1. The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish 

2. Basecamp’s REWORK podcast

3. Masters of Scale

4. This Week in Startups

5. The Growth Show

How SparkToro knows: “Podcast data is really hard to get,” Natividad said — but SparkToro triangulates, using public signals like who posts about the podcasts, or follows the podcast host and the podcast social accounts. 

How she could use it: To pitch herself as a podcast guest, citing SparkToro data to prove audience overlap. 

Her first idea: Talking about how she’s grown SparkToro’s Office Hours webinars to 1K guests per event (!) on The Growth Show. 

A good chunk have founded their own businesses.

The finding: “Founder” is the most frequently-used word in her followers’ bios — it appears in 8.2% of them. 

How SparkToro knows: It crawls her followers’ Twitter bios for recurring words and phrases. 

How she could use it: She could post more about founder-relevant concerns or search SparkToro for other accounts founders follow. Then she could build out a rolodex for collaboration opportunities — or competitive analysis. 😈

Our takeaway? 

SparkToro can help marketers analyze their employers’ audiences  — or their own, if they’re building a personal brand. 

And, as Natividad recently pointed out: who isn’t?

TWEET TREAT

Email marketing isn’t a job — it’s a lifestyle!

SMALL BITES

Gen Z shopping trends, smart TV marketing, and internal links…

What’s brand loyalty? Gen Z is more likely to try what’s new than older gens.

But 90’s nostalgia might not be the ticket to Zoomers’ hearts. 

Audio is officially shoppable: Spotify ads now have CTA cards.

Internal links matter for SEO — just keep the anchor text short. 

Personal branding for 2022 calls for “digital dexterity” ... 

… and an openness to “polygamous work.”

Brands can segment smart TV audiences with ACR tracking.

Savage X Fenty will open physical stores in 2022.

Is the Harry Potter reunion “a calculated act of rebranding”?

Taco Bell’s taco pass may be the future of loyalty — and data collection.

FROM OUR BLOG

Are you an influencer marketing expert?

Everyone wants to try influencer marketing these days. No, really. 

According to eMarketer data, over 70% of marketers will use influencer marketing by the end of 2022. 

But influencer marketing isn’t a guaranteed win. 

“You never know if you're going to do a $10,000 buy and get nothing,” influencer marketer Amanda Garren told MarketerHire. 

So do you have what it takes to launch an influencer marketing campaign?

Find out with a lightning round of  influencer marketing trivia! 

What is a niche influencer?

a) An influencer on a niche platform, like Twitter Spaces

b) Same as a micro-influencer, right?

c) Someone who posts content about a subculture 

What is an inappropriate endorsement disclosure, according to the FTC? 

a) #sponsored

b) #collab

c) #AcmePartner

How do you calculate engagement rate on a post? 

a) Number of engaged people in post / total follower count

b) Number of comments and likes / views

c) Number of likes and comments / total follower count

That’s not even half of what our panel of experts told us about influencer marketing. 

Read on for the five most common mistakes marketers make when they get started (and the answers to this quiz).

DATA SNACK

December's most in-demand marketing roles

People may have wanted a break from marketing in the final weeks of 2021, but brands didn’t stop hiring marketers. 

According to MarketerHire’s data, in December: 

• 📈 Growth marketers’ slice of the hiring pie grew MoM
• 📉 Paid search marketers lost ground
• 📈 Social media marketers gained traction

Growth marketers help startups hire strategically.

Startup leaders “want to do some testing to see which channel expert to bring in,” MarketerHire growth manager Kellie Bartholemew said. 

So they’re bringing in growth marketers to set strategy from the start. 

Organic social is trending as a Google Ads alternative. 

Brands have been investing in social media marketers to boost brand awareness, our sales team said — without the rising cost of paid search ads. 

Brands in regulated industries are bringing in experts. 

In sectors like health and cannabis, Bartholomew noted that a messaging misstep can get your ad (or your whole account!) banned. 

So brands are playing it safe — hiring paid social media marketing pros to get ad phrasing right the first time. 

Our takeaway?

Social media and growth marketing got end-of-year boosts in December from  brands trying to diversify their channels and build out hiring plans for 2022. 

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