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We’re thinking of restructuring, but we don’t want to cut your fave section. 

In this issue: MIT’s social strategy, Doja Cat’s “““love””” for Mexican pizza, and DTC’s deceleration.

EXPERT Q&A

4 tactics that grew MIT’s social audience to 4M+

MIT has more than 1M followers on three different platforms: Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Compare that to the University of Alabama, which has just 182K followers on Twitter, less than 600K on Facebook, and no LinkedIn we could find. 

It’s especially impressive since MIT has a third as many students as UA. 

How is MIT pulling this off? We asked Jenny Fowler, MIT’s director of social media strategy. 

She’s spent the last six years translating the university’s legacy brand to social, more than 2Xing its total social audience. Here are some tactics that have worked for her. 

Doubling down on LinkedIn

When Fowler started at MIT, she thought LinkedIn was a waste of time.

But in 2019, the university started posting native videos on the platform, including a livestream of commencement, and performance improved. 

“LinkedIn really loves to celebrate people,” Fowler said. (She suspects an algo change, too.)

Today, she’s “bullish” on the networking platform, where MIT got 677 new followers per day in January. 

Bucking the “no links on Twitter” convention

For organic Twitter, “they say engagement goes down if you link out,” Fowler said. (A Hootsuite experiment backs this up.)

Still, MIT includes links in nearly every tweet, and it works. 

The university’s news office, with specialized reporters covering every academic field gives them great stuff to link to.

Giving the audience what they want: numbers

On May 21, Fowler’s colleague pointed out that it was the 21st day of the 21st month of the 21st year of the 21st century. 

MIT’s social audience’s “love language is math and numbers,” Fowler said, so she tweeted about it in the 21st hour of that day — and got retweeted ~1.5K times. 

Other top-performing topics on MIT social, Fowler said: robots and medical research.

Prioritizing diversity

“People will judge [your account] in three thumb scrolls,” Fowler said — so she makes sure “that everyone is represented in our timeline every day.”

She posts updates on what various disciplines are up to — not just math and science ones — and spotlights diverse community members.

“If you can't see yourself… at MIT, we'll lose you to the Stanfords or Harvards,” she said. 

Our takeaway? 

“You have to experiment and do what works for you,” Fowler said. 

Leaning into your strengths  — even if it means tweeting links — can build a major social presence. Even for a university that’s not known for socializing! 

TWEET TREAT

Forced influencer marketing… works!

It’s true that there was a definite horror movie energy to Doja Cat’s TikToks about Taco Bell last week. Like she was being held prisoner?

“They want me to rap about Mexican pizza,” she says in the first TikTok, featuring a wall that is literally crumbling. “Just know it’s contractual… I know it’s bad!”

In the second TikTok, she drops a half-hearted rap jingle over a “monstrosity of a beat.” 

Our favorite bar is [checks notes] “I eat, I eat, I eat.”

She doesn’t look happy, the way she did as a rebellious clown in Taco Bell’s Super Bowl commercial. She’s visibly cringing. 

And the people love it!

The Doja Cat effect, by the numbers

Together, her two TikToks got… 

• 28M+ views 

• 7M+ likes

• 5K+ retweets from one Twitter repost

• *Several* tweets about Doja-inspired Taco Bell runs — this is a full-funnel strategy! 

Our takeaway? 

Anyone assuming Taco Bell is unhappy with Doja, think again. The TikToks got people excited about Mexican pizza, and the joke was on her jingle — not the food. 

We pretty sure Taco Bell’s in on the joke, too; they posted a similar creative concept to their brand TikTok. 

SMALL BITES

The TikTok war, everyday wonder, and affirmational marketing

Someone is paying Russian TikTokkers to post pro-Kremlin videos… 

… and the White House is asking TikTokkers to post about the war in Ukraine.  

Hollister is partnering with TikTok influencers for the long haul. 

CNN shares data with 200+ third parties in the display ad ecosystem. 

“Everyday wonder” is trending on Twitter. 

The bright side of MPP: it’s a suggestion of deliverability. 

Aspirational marketing has been eclipsed by affirmational marketing. 

TikTok hopes to attract unsigned musicians for music distribution. 

Moral compromises can tank an employer’s brand. 

Outdoor Voices’ founder has launched a brand loyalty NFT platform. 

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DATA SNACK

3 reasons DTC brands lost steam in 2021 — and the playbook for 2022

In 2020, revenue for DTC brands surged more than 40% YoY, according to eMarketer.

Then in 2021, DTC revenue growth slowed to about 19% YoY. What changed?

1. The pandemic loosened its grip.

In 2021, vaccinations rolled out, and people no longer felt they had to shop online for their own safety. 

In June 2021, consumers were nearly 2X more likely than in April 2020 to shop for non-grocery items in-person, Nielsen reported. 

2. VCs moved on to “the next revolution.”

Forerunner Ventures invested in DTC darlings Warby Parker, Bonobos and Glossier — but it currently focuses more on Web3 efforts and tools for e-comm retailers. 

“The next revolution in commerce starts with the seller,” partner Kirsten Green wrote in a 2022 trend forecast. 

3. iOS 14.5 broke the go-to DTC marketing playbook.

When Apple’s privacy update rolled out in spring of 2021, it broke the go-to DTC marketing playbook: ad arbitrage. 

Facebook could no longer track mobile conversions, which meant it couldn’t algorithmically optimize paid campaigns for conversions like it used to. 

So how do you build a DTC brand in 2022?

We asked four pros — including Nik “The DTC Guy” Sharma — which marketing tactics are trending in the DTC space right now. 

Read on for the 6 trends they expect to dominate this year.

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