This Account Gained 511K Followers in Two Months

I wanted to hate this strategy. Instead I dug into it.

This weekend I fell down a hole of Nicole The Intern, #smasharmy, and Mixoloshe’s stakes-based social strategy. If all of those words strung together mean nothing to you, I’m jealous.

Let me back up. Mixoloshe is a non-alcoholic canned cocktail company. They have an official Instagram here that has 88K followers and a somewhat engaged community.

But that’s not where I learned about Mixoloshe.

Instead it was an account called “@thebestmarketingstrategyever” run by “Nicole The Intern”. In the first post, on April 13th, the caption reads “If I don’t hit 500k followers by 6/10 I’m fired 🥴”. The video depicts Nicole smashing a can with a baseball bat and on-screen text that reads “60 days remaining to prove to my boss that smashing this can is more effective than his entire marketing strategy.”

Screenshot of the first post from @thebestmarketingstrategyever

Today, just a little over 50 days later, the @thebestmarketingstrategyever account is at 511K followers. Posts often receive over 30K likes, with some getting over 100K. This strategy has led to some of the biggest sales days in the company’s history and a 600% increase in web traffic. There’s an extremely active community (#smasharmy) that suggests video ideas (this Twilight one came from one commenter), collectively hates her boss Mike (just look at this post), and even spammed a recent Mosseri video to have her un-shadowbanned.

The Mixoloshe website has a pop up that asks if they found them from Nicole

This is part of a trend that I’m deeming “stakes-based social media”. The brand or account basically uses a high stakes scenario to grow their account or encourage people to engage. Like this account that’s “proving” to their marketing teacher that a piece of bread falling over can get more followers than Panera by graduation (they did it and now have over 600K followers). Or this trend of “asking my husband how many likes for him to get me this Prada bag”—the linked video has 37M views and 6M likes. We all remember this viral video from an auto body shop that got over 25M views for writing “Guys I lied on my resume and got a job doing the social media for this auto body shop, please blow this up so I don’t get fired”.

I think it’s easy to write off a stakes-based strategy like @thebestmarketingstrategyever as spammy. (I did.) But, like I mentioned last week, that’s a marketer perspective and it’s important to get out of our bubble. @thebestmarketingstrategyever’s audience has qualities that I think a lot of brands would be quite envious of: fiercely loyal, buys the product, and engages on every post. Do I think all brands should switch to a stakes-based model? Absolutely not. Are there some things we can learn from this strategy? I think so. Here’s what I came up with:

• Audiences like to feel united around a cause or mission, especially one that they can relate to. Everyone loves an underdog story. They want to see Nicole the Intern win and her boss Mike lose. I could see this sort of strategy working for a campaign that brings back a once-loved product for a brand. “Day one of convincing our boss to bring back ______.” Build a story. Create a protagonist for a campaign. Bring your audience along for the ride. Make them want to check your account every day.

• Stop trying to do so much on Instagram. If you compare the @thebestmarketingstrategyever account to the @mixoloshe account, it feels a lot tighter. There’s one storyline. There’s a hero, an enemy, and a goal. Sometimes brand accounts try and do too much—there’s memes, there’s reviews, there’s product shots. The @thebestmarketingstrategyever account asks “What if we just focused on the very top of the funnel on social?”

• Stick with the bit! I think there’s a tendency to post one or two parts of a potential series, have them underperform, and write them off as unsuccessful. It doesn’t feel good to post things that don’t do well! But if you believe in the series you pitched and know there’s a potential audience for it, tweak it and don’t give up after one or two tries.

• The production quality of Nicole’s videos is quite good. I think it’d be one thing if she just posted the same baseball bat smashing video over and over. But she continues to raise the stakes when it comes to the amount of effort in each video—look here and here. (I am aware they use trademarked music but so do most brands so I’m not taking that into account here.)

• Building lore around your brand is key. Is this storyline real? Unclear. Does it matter? I don’t think so. Those that believe it are invested. Those that question it comment and stir up engagement. There is an entire Reddit thread dedicated to their strategy. What kind of lore can you introduce to a campaign or series?

Okay, that’s enough about @thebestmarketingstrategyever. Clearly thought about it way too much over the weekend.

Here’s what’s in today’s newsletter:

• The trending video format that I’d love to see a brand try

• Five favorite brand posts this week (including two really good teasers)

• Is a carousel of videos more effective than a Reel?

• A mini interview with MoMA PS1 about this very good post

• Three creators to work with right now (including someone from the best show on television, Summer House)

• Rare! Consumers actually liked this brand trip…

• 15 loose links, random social tips, and interesting articles—like how I increase my reach on LinkedIn, the sunscreen campaign I am digging, the brand that’s leaning into their “hot founder” storyline, and more.