When it comes to trying new things online, Free People isn’t holding back.

The Urbn clothing brand, which has more than 4.6 million followers on Instagram and a growing investment in platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Substack, views social as key to its efforts to reach its core demographic of women ages 25 to 34.

“Instagram is really important to us in terms of driving sales,” Libby Strachan, director of brand marketing at Free People, told us. “TikTok is more exploratory and not really like the major sales driver yet, but we’re investing so much more in ads.”

Beyond that, Free People has started experimenting with new types of social content, like behind-the-scenes campaign videos and musician collabs. We spoke with Strachan about the risks that paid off in 2024 and the social media trends Free People might lean into—and sit out—heading into next year.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Scrolling through Free People’s TikTok and Instagram accounts, it seems like behind-the-scenes (BTS) content was a key focus for you this year.

Yeah, and it performs so much better than when we’re just posting campaign imagery or something shot professionally.

Why do you think people like the BTS content more than the campaign images themselves?

I think they’re just used to seeing that all the time from brands now, the regular campaign stuff, and they want something different. We’ve seen other brands in the space using huge talent, like Troye Sivan and Gap or Demi Moore and J. Crew, where you get that interview angle as well and some insight into the person. At the end of the day, we’re all selling clothes, right? So it’s like, what’s the interesting spin we can put on things in a campaign? It’s a little bit more exciting to get the BTS angle.

Continue reading here.—KH

When their 15 minutes of fame came calling, some social media users refused to hang up the phone.

This year, several seemingly regular people leveraged their viral moments into the beginnings of full-fledged influencing or entertainment careers. One day, they were just like us. The next, they were starting podcasts and signing brand deals.

Here are some of the influencers who turned something small into something much bigger in 2024, and the brands they partnered with along the way.

“Who TF Did I Marry?” Tareasa Johnson, who also goes by the name Reesa Teesa, posted a 50-part, more-than-eight-hour-long TikTok series in February chronicling her twisty-turny relationship with her ex-husband.

Variety reported in September that the series had racked up more than 450 million impressions across social media platforms, bringing Johnson more than 3 million new followers and a contract with talent agency CAA. Now, actor and producer Natasha Rothwell is developing the whole thing into a TV adaptation under her production company, Big Hattie Productions. (We will be sat.)

The Costco Guys: AJ and Big Justice, the father-son duo better known as the Costco Guys, posted a video on TikTok professing their love for the big-box store in March, bringing in more than 60 million views to date. Cue: representation with Night Media, an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and an original song we fear will be stuck in our heads forever called “We Bring the BOOM!”

While the nature of the duo’s relationship with Costco remains murky (over the summer, AJ wouldn’t tell Rolling Stone if they have a “financial relationship with the brand”), their page features sponsored posts with Lubriderm, Philips Sonicare, and more.

Read more here.—JN

As inflated grocery prices have sent shoppers heading to different retailers and switching to private labels to cross everything off their lists, getting consumers to keep coming back to the same retailers and brands has become a loyal pain.

From personalization to new innovations, Stuart Aitken, chief merchant and marketing officer at Kroger, and Gregory Guidotti, CMO at Ferrara Candy Company, owner of brands like Nerds, Trolli, and SweeTarts, have found several ways to effectively engage wayward shoppers. Retail Brew sat down with Aitken and Ferrara at Groceryshop in Las Vegas earlier this year to discuss how consumers’ needs are shifting and the top strategies they’re employing to keep them coming back.

Read more on Retail Brew.—EC