Last Sunday I was at a Galentine's party (cute!) and someone told me the best news I had heard all week. "Season 3 of The White Lotus is on tonight."
My interest in this show borders distracting and unhealthy, so I don't know how I didn't realize it was back until the last minute. During Season 2, I would listen to the latest installment of HBO's companion podcast like clockwork, and then would text my friends about it, and then would read Reddit threads, and so on all the way until the following week's episode. So I did the same thing this past Sunday. But this time around, I've noticed some changes—though they're not about the show itself. It's about a new brand marketing ecosystem that has materialized around the show. |
The companion podcast episode opened with an Abercrombie ad for their "long weekend-ready" edit, which includes a White Lotus branded sweatshirt. Then, while walking home from work last night, I passed by an H&M, which had a huge window display for their new H&M x The White Lotus capsule
collection.
Sure enough, after doing some research on it, others have noticed this too. Marketing Brew recently wrote about how a whole slew of brands—including Away, Abercrombie & Fitch, Banana Republic, Bloomingdale’s, and Coffee Mate—are releasing officially licensed White Lotus-themed products.
Katie Hicks wrote for Morning Brew that brands' interest in co-marketing with The White Lotus is a result of media consumption being more fragmented than ever (think: everyone's highly personalized FYPs). In response, brands are using popular mainstream media as an aggregated node of cultural interest to try to cut through the noise.
Around the same time, I listened to a podcast episode with one of my favorite creators, Tinx, who aired a special partner episode with Peacock to promote their new Bridget Jones movie.
Again, it got me thinking about how brands, creators, and media companies think about aggregating attention and building relationships with their audiences. In the case of Tinx & Bridget Jones, Peacock was able to leverage Tinx's highly engaged, highly trusting, highly tight-knit community to make the release of their movie feel more personal to their target audience. |
So what does this ever-evolving advertising ecosystem mean for creators? I'm sure there's a lot more to say about this, but my immediate thought is that it's only getting more and more important to have an engaged and loyal audience. It's something that traditional media companies and brands covet, and something that creators are uniquely skilled at building.
So start that IG Group, start collecting those email subscribers, and engage with your followers in your comments. In my opinion, it's the surest way to increase the value and longevity of your creator business. |
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And speaking of emails!
A few weeks ago, I shared the details of the new deliverability dashboard that helps you measure how effectively your emails are landing in subscribers' inboxes, and steps you can take to improve deliverability. One new feature that came out of this project that I want to highlight is the new automatic Active Audience group.
The Active Audience group is a new feature where Beacons automatically creates a group of your most engaged subscribers. You can select to send your emails to this group, which means you're targeting your most active fans who are most likely to engage with your emails. This improves your open rates, click rates, and overall deliverability score. |
The group is also dynamic, meaning that subscribers automatically move in and out of the group depending on whether they engage with your emails. That means you don't have to worry about maintaining the list. Just sit back and let us do the hard part for you.
Sending your emails to your Active Audience is a concrete way to improve your deliverability. Check it out and give it a try with your next email send! |
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👉 Btw, have you check out our Canny feedback form? You can submit feature requests for us to build here directly. We look at this every day! |
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I’ll just come right out and say it: at the moment, I'm tired of girlbossing. I'd like to take a nap. The end of February is tough, you guys. I am not the same person that I was a few weeks ago, waxing on about romanticizing winter. She's gone. It’s been cold forever, the snow is more full of dirt than magic, and it feels like everyone has been sick for weeks.
But half the battle is mental, right? I’m planning to do 3 creatively refreshing things this weekend so that I can start next week on a different note. Here are some of my ideas:
Talking to strangers: There's something liberating about talking to a stranger who likely won't appear in your life again, like someone in line with you at a coffee shop. And it makes you feel more present in the world than, say, scrolling on your phone while you wait. At least, that's what I am hoping—will report back.
Buying gifts: Buying things for myself sounds like more fun, but doesn’t usually inspire the same kind of long-term satisfaction and gratitude of gift-giving. A few of my friends' birthdays are coming up, so I want to explore some cute mom-and-pop shops in my neighborhood to get them gifts that feel fun and extremely personal.
Sweating: I'm not sure if this will mean finding a sauna, going to hot yoga, or having a nightmare, but sweating in some form instead of shivering is sounding really appealing right now.
Is anything working some magic for you right now? Reply and send me your ideas. |
There's been some great content of super snuggly #pets in slack recently, so it feels wrong not to share that here this week. |
Please let these photos inspire you for the weekend. |
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Stay warm, and see you on IG! |
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