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Marketing Brew

Ryan Barwick

marketingbrew.com

 X ad costs, engagement continue to fall, per report 

Data from Tracer provided a snapshot of the ad platform ecosystem.

 X ad costs and engagement continue to fall, per report 

Katie Hicks

Influencer at the center of a ring light being scanned

Deepfakes are spreading, putting creator and brand safety at risk

Michel Janse, who said her likeness was recently used without her consent, told Marketing Brew the experience was “violating.” 

How brands are thinking about a possible TikTok ban

Duolingo, Osea Malibu, and Truff are among the brands that tell us they’d turn to alternative short-form video platforms, like Instagram Shorts and YouTube Reels.

An @ symbol denoting social media and influencers

Social & Influencers

A cartoon image of Kristina Monllos created by Morning Brew

Kristina Monllos

We’re talking, of course, about the “dream” of content creation, posting content, gaining a massive following on social media, getting a ton of brand deals, and quitting your 9-to-5. Someone might see it as a fool’s game when watching the backlash that one creator, Connor Hubbard, or @hubs.life_, has faced over the last few months.

Hubbard, dubbed “the most boring man on the internet” last year by 

 (1.4 million) for his mundane day-in-the-life videos that, as 

 reported, drove “the internet insane.”

“Most of the world is working,” Hubbard told GQ last May, theorizing why his content 

 had become so popular. “They have to work for a living. They can’t all be influencers.”

 become an influencer. And in February of this year, Hubbard followed the now familiar trajectory, 

 his 9-to-5 to become a full-time content creator, transitioning from what had made him famous to yet another influencer without a traditional day job. (Hubbard did not respond to Marketing Brew’s request for comment.) Since then, Hubbard has faced backlash from his fans for no longer being “

.” There’s even a new content cycle from other creators, 

 what went wrong—a “downfall” that some say “

Hubbard is one of a number of content creators who’ve followed this trajectory, pivoting from a part-time influencer (who has a normal job) to a full-time content creator, dependent on brands and algorithms for income. It’s a difficult transition for any creator to manage, one they should approach with a plan to guide audiences along on the journey, according to influencer marketing and ad agency execs.

While the appeal of content creation can be a sense of freedom and the possibility to create and make money doing so, what’s happening for Hubbard is a reality check that there are boundaries—even for the creator economy.

“It’s a good reminder that if you’re a creator, if the ultimate goal is to work for yourself, you have to work for your audience,” Oliver McAteer, partner and head of development at ad agency Mischief, said. “You do have customers out there, so to speak, consumers that know you for kind of one thing. So it does kind of narrow you or limit you to how far you could go.”

McAteer has experienced limits with his own content. Two and a half years ago, McAteer started to document his experience as a first-time dad on his personal TikTok account called 

. With that page, which has 28,000 followers, he experimented in switching up the content, running a series about being a Brit in America. “Whilst [that] had a life of its own, my followership stalled, and it has stalled to this day,” McAteer said. “And that’s because I tried to change my content and do something a little bit different.”

Doing something different isn’t inherently bad. Creators can and do need to adjust their approach to content creation as they see fit, but their audience may have a reaction to any changes. It’s all a matter of how creators manage a shift in their approach to the content.

“If you think of it more like I’m switching up my content and I’m making a major life change—there’s always a risk with that; a lot of times, that risk pays off,” Mae Karwowski, founder and CEO of influencer marketing agency Obviously, said. “Your audience truly has a parasocial relationship with you, and they really feel like they know you really well if you’re doing a good job, so you really need to understand and be very thoughtful about how you make a transition.”

Karwowski believes that creators should think of themselves as akin to magazines. For instance, Karwowski posited that if Vogue started posting 

 out of nowhere, its subscribers would probably unsubscribe. Creators making a stark transition in content should consider a scenario like that and think about what followers might want from them, she said.

For creators, it’s not just a matter of whether or not they’re making audiences happy. There’s a ripple effect: “You as a creator should be taking cues from your followers,” Christina Goswiller, SVP and head of social transformation for Digitas, said. “Ultimately, they’re the ones who are engaging with your content, [determining] the performance of your content, which then determines brand deals and your livelihood.”

If a marketer was looking to work with a creator because of their specific type of content and the audience they’ve cultivated, but then that creator makes a change, they could end up losing out on future brand deals.

Marketers may want to “reevaluate that partnership,” Goswiller said, adding that it depends on the longevity of the relationship.

And even if a creator wants to quit what made them successful, it can be smarter to stick with what has worked, Karwowski said. She shared a parallel of a successful small-town content creator who moves to LA, and “then the lifestyle creep is so real, and now it’s just LA influencer content,” she said. “I always advise, if you don’t have to move, [don’t].”

Hubslife backlash is a reminder that audiences can be fickle

Transitioning from the content you're known for isn't as easy as it seems. 

Jennimai Nguyen

Creator Madi Marotta’s first official day on the job as Waterboy’s new social media manager was a tropical and eventful one.

The electrolyte additive company was off on its second-ever brand trip, this year to Tulum, Mexico, with some big-name influencers, their plus-ones, and regular-schmegular customers all in tow. With 38 people representing the brand in some capacity, they were there mostly to party and hang out, and Marotta was there to capture it all.

She created dozens of social videos for TikTok, many taking a casual, creator-as-brand-voice approach and showing Waterboy’s guests indulging in the party scene. But the TikTok audience was unimpressed with the content she gathered, and she took on what some would consider a rather unfortunate title: worst social media manager ever.

Waterboy’s co-founder and CEO, Mike Xhaxho, wasn’t fazed by the criticism. In fact, his TikTok bio recently described him as a “Madi stan,” and the online backlash has inspired the brand’s latest TikTok series featuring Marotta trying to figure out how to be a “good” social media manager, humorously leaning into the critique. While he told us that the brand trip’s social content wasn’t designed to spark outrage, the team tried to make the most of it, and it fit into the brand’s untraditional approach to marketing.

“It’s just who we are, which is a little bit polarizing, for better or worse,” Xhaxho said.

For Waterboy’s inaugural brand trip last year, it focused on 

 as a way to appreciate their supporters and in response to online sentiment that seemed to shift away from over-the-top influencer trips, Xhaxho said.

This year, Xhaxho said the strategy was to “double dip” by inviting customers and influencers like Kelsey Anderson, Brandon Edelman (better known as Bran Flakezz), and Ken Eurich, in addition to guests of influencers who were followers chosen via sweepstakes hosted on the influencers’ accounts.

“That’s still the thesis, that we’re doing a customer trip,” Xhaxho said. “But how cool would it maybe be for the customers to be able to party and hang out alongside their favorite creators?”

Some TikTok viewers picked up on this thesis, but several were displeased with its execution online, calling out the brand for seeming to only show the influencers and not customers or followers in its videos. Xhaxho said this was intentionally in response to feedback the brand received on last year’s brand trip, where some viewers said the customers shown in last year’s videos seemed like they were being forced to create ads.

“It feels like on social right now, everything’s kind of under that magnifying glass,” Xhaxho said. “And maybe certain customers view these trips as lavish and wasteful, but for us, it still helps achieve reach and awareness cost effectively.”

During the trip, Marotta helmed 42 TikToks posted to the Waterboy account. Of those, Marketing Brew counted 10 videos that featured mentions of the product or showed it on screen. Still, one of the chief critiques from TikTok commenters was that the product wasn’t shown enough, or positioned as a hangover cure for the partyers on screen.

Screenshot of comment that reads "Went through 40 TikToks and still don't know what Waterboy is"

Xhaxho said that Waterboy doesn’t go into its brand trips with “elaborate plans around exactly the content we want to capture.” Rather, the team approaches the trips with high-level goals like driving awareness. As for marketing it as a hangover cure, he said that’s never been part of the brand’s messaging.

“We don’t want to communicate that, ‘Hey, we have this weekend recovery product that you can go out and get smashed, take this, and wake up feeling fine,’ because that’s not what it does, and we’re fine showcasing content in which it’s not that,” he said. “I know one element of the controversy [online] was, ‘If they took Waterboy, why are they hungover?’ It’s like, well, Waterboy is not this perfect hangover preventer. We would not be charging you $2 a stick if we somehow had the cure for hangovers.”

Overall, viewers were also unsatisfied with the brand’s production level, commenting on details like camera quality and Marotta’s content style, with one person writing “nothing about this page screams professional or very put together” and suggesting the content was more suited to a personal account. But to Xhaxho, Marotta’s style was a key part of why he hired her, as he felt it aligned with the brand.

“Her content style is very much like talking to the camera, vlogging, high energy, so we felt like that would be someone that would be able to document the trip,” he said. “The idea of the content on the trip was, ‘How do we make someone feel like they’re there?’”

Despite the criticism, Xhaxho told us that during and immediately following the trip, the company saw its best month of sales across its website, Amazon, and retail in the company’s history, though he declined to share specific sales numbers. Now, it’s all about continuing the moment.

“We found ourselves in this interesting echo chamber of ‘You’re so bad at marketing,’ and then we made the most of that moment,” he said. “But it’s like, how do we continue to grow the brand and create more of our own earned moments?”

As the Waterboy TikTok account doubles down, Xhaxho said he doesn’t regret the way the Tulum trip played out. Ultimately, if some consumers associate Waterboy with “bad” marketing, Xhaxho said there are worse things for a brand to be associated with, like poor customer relations or having an undesirable product, and he sees Marotta’s content approach as a way to stand out while remaining true to the brand.

“We don’t need everyone to love us because unfortunately, in trying to do so, I think what will end up happening is everyone will just feel very lukewarm at best,” he said. “It’s okay if we can have 10% of people love us and 90% of people hate us. That’s better than everyone else feeling pretty indifferent.”

Collage of screenshots from Waterboy's TikTok showing the brand trip and a photo showing guests holding up shot glasses.

Waterboy doesn’t regret that brand trip 

A brand-new social media manager, partying influencers, and unpolished content caught TikTok’s eye for all the wrong reasons—but did it end up helping more than hurting?

 are supposed to be there to find love, so when drama emerges, they’re often asking: Is this person here for the right reasons?

The better question might be: Have the right reasons evolved?

For many reality show contestants, the biggest benefit of appearing on unscripted television isn’t to walk away a winner, but rather to use their raised profiles as a launchpad for their personal brand, according to Tamika Rose, director of campaign management at talent agency Kensington Grey.

“I don’t know if everyone will find love on a [reality show], so there has to be some form of understanding that you will have additional benefits of being on a show like this,” Rose told us. “Approaching it that way is normal at this point. I think people should capitalize on the opportunity that they’re getting.”

And capitalize they are. Hannah Brown, who first competed on Season 23 of 

is the most followed former contestant from the Bachelor franchise, reaching 2.7 million people on Instagram; an AT&T Savings 

 from 2020, after Brown starred in her own season of 

, estimated that she averaged between $5,260 and $8,767 per sponsored Instagram post. Meanwhile, 

Leah Kateb boasts 4.6 million Instagram followers; according to an estimate from creator platform Hafi.pro, she brings in more than $100,000 a month from sponsored social content.

contestants like Season 1’s Aïssata Diallo and Season 2’s Justine Joy Ndiba, has helped create social media careers lasting beyond the immediate hype wave of a season and connected brands to creators for years after the bombshell leaves the villa. While she said that crafting a resonant personal narrative is key, there’s a lot more to it, she told us. Here’s how she gets it done.

Rose encourages reality contestants to begin working with a creator agency far before an onscreen introduction to legions of TV fans.

“Please seek out representation even before you go on the show,” Rose said. “Or after the show, make sure your inbox is open and you’re looking for somebody to help represent who you are now that you have millions of followers.”

In Rose’s experience, some reality show cast members may not be well-versed in the influencer world and sometimes don’t know how to navigate issues like rates, content ownership, or contract negotiations, which can put them at a disadvantage. Management firms can often provide the expertise that newer influencers might otherwise lack, she said.

Once representation is secured, Rose said understanding the client’s personal story is key to laying the foundation for a sustainable creator career, she said. This can look like doubling down on aspects of their personalities that resonated onscreen or introducing new categories of content they’d like to produce.

’s most recent breakout star, Huda Mustafa, who came to the show as a fitness coach. If Rose was working with Mustafa—or someone with a similar background—she suggested leaning into fitness as an area of interest.

“[After the show], we’re looking to see who the biggest names within that industry are, and how can we align her with that?” Rose said. “If…her audience actually resonates really strongly with that, then we’d continue to make that a strong pillar for her.”

That’s not always the case. In the case of Diallo, from Season 1, new fans might have learned about her for the beauty-and-bikinis branding core to the show—but Rose said she helped Diallo pivot, instead elevating Diallo’s personal connection to her religion and leaning into more “modest fashion.”

Rose said the shift helped Diallo defy fans’ expectations, and Diallo said it was necessary for her broader career ambitions.

“My goal was not to be known for being on reality TV, so I knew I had to shift the narrative,” Diallo told us. “I knew that I wanted to brand myself in a way that the brands that I will potentially work with are only elevating my storytelling and speaking to my audience.”

In the reality-to-influencer pipeline, timing can feel like it’s everything, but Rose believes intentional brand partnerships are often more crucial than speed.

“Timing is important, but we want to make sure that whatever the partnership is, it’s very intentional, and it has a long-term brand perception,” Rose said. “We would most likely look to make sure that we catch momentum, but we are not sacrificing the integrity of that creator or their platform.”

Inside the reality-TV-star-to-influencer pipeline 

Talent agency Kensington Grey has worked with several alums of the show and other unscripted hits that furthered the reality-TV-star-to-influencer pipeline.

It was the kiss cam seen ’round the world—and on just about every brand account.

When the former CEO and former head of HR at software company Astronomer were caught in an apparent moment of infidelity at a Coldplay concert in Massachusetts last week, it immediately set off a social media frenzy, with nearly 200,000 posts and more than 46 million engagements, according to intelligence platform Meltwater.

Brands were eager to get in on the action. The official accounts for 

 posted the now-viral image of the couple with (sometimes stretched) references to their brand, while 

 and fans have re-created the moment on kiss cams at recent games.

At face value, it may have felt like a simple moment of 

 humor—after all, adultery is pretty universally frowned upon. But in addition to putting brands at risk of backlash, experts tell us it could also put them at risk of potential legal action.

 Since brands began posting about the event, some people have spoken out against their involvement, citing the personal nature of the moment and its impact on both parties’ families.

“I think it’s fair game as an individual to clown on the main character of the day, but brands don’t need to participate in schadenfreude,” David McNamee, social media creative lead at social media agency Benchmob, wrote in a post on 

After all, participating in viral trends 

 lead to tangible results, Tom Miner, a social media strategist, noted in a post reviewing Google Trends results for Aldi after the brand posted its Coldplay take to suggest minimal, if any, impact.

In the past, brands that have chimed in on potentially fraught viral moments have faced backlash for involving themselves. In 2022, Duolingo found itself in hot water after weighing in on the much-talked-about Johnny Depp and Amber Heard domestic abuse trial from the brand’s account; the brand’s social media manager ended up issuing an 

Kelly Costello, head of corporate communications at Meltwater, cautioned that because new viral moments pop up regularly, brands should be strategic about the ones they choose to engage with.

“It takes years for brands to build trust and just seconds for them to lose trust by getting backlash over a post that’s deemed in bad taste,” she told us via email.

Chipotle has since deleted a post that seemed to reference the incident with a fake billboard that read, “It’s okay to cheat on your Chipotle order if it’s with Chipotle Honey Chicken.” Chipotle declined to comment.

An image from Chipotle's since-deleted post on X showing a billboard that reads, "It's okay to cheat on your Chipotle order if it's with Chipotle honey chicken."

 Beyond reputational risks, there are also legal risks to consider. Robert Freund, a business litigator and advisor focused on advertising compliance, told us that while it could seem like the kiss-cam moment was fair game because it happened publicly, posting a screengrab of the couple could potentially open brands up to legal action, including copyright infringement brought by the person who originally posted the video and the publicity rights on behalf of the people featured in the images.

“Any time a brand posts content, whether it’s with ad spend behind it or organically on social media, to promote whatever their brand is, and there’s a recognizable person in that content, and they have not obtained that person’s permission through a publicity rights release or something similar, they’re setting themselves up for exposure to a publicity rights claim,” Freund told us.

Depending on the caption associated with the post, Freund said there “could be a defamation angle.” Bigger brands with larger followings, he said, are often more likely to become a target for potential plaintiffs.

If brands simply must weigh in, he suggested a safer route, like what Netflix did by posting two stills of Atlanta Falcons quarterback Kirk Cousins from the streamer’s docuseries 

“Everyone probably gets the joke,” Freund said, “but I don’t think that that would present any risk.”

Screenshots via @Duolingo/Instagram, @Netflix/X, and @Ryanair/X

Brands were all-in on the Coldplay concert couple. Should they have been?

Jumping in on a fraught viral moment comes with reputational—and potentially legal—risks.

“LinkedInfluencer” isn’t an official term at LinkedIn HQ, but that could soon change.

The Microsoft-owned networking platform created its first 

 more than a decade ago, but, as video content has become more popular in recent years, its potential as a creator platform has only grown.

In 2021, LinkedIn added a “creator mode” for analytics and sharing, and in May, it expanded its in-stream video ad program to include the option to place ads against influencer content. At the same time, it launched 

 from known business figures like fashion designer Rebecca Minkoff and Sprinkles bakery founder Candace Nelson.

Even before the expansion, video consumption on LinkedIn was growing. In its latest earnings report, Microsoft reported that time spent watching videos on LinkedIn increased 36%, and the platform’s total revenue increased 7%.

“People are creating more content…People are consuming more of it,” Matt Derella, VP of LinkedIn marketing solutions, told us. “Folks on our platform who have the most credibility around topics that really matter to people are leaning into it, and that’s opening up the opportunity for us now to work with creators in a way that can help them not only drive reach, but build their business.”

As LinkedIn becomes more conducive to creators, it’s opening up the door to new kinds of content and advertisers on the platform—but creators and agency execs say there are still some growing pains when it comes to mastering the LinkedIn algorithm, data-sharing, and monetization options.

Sara Uy, who goes by “SellingSara” online, 

 about her sales job on TikTok before expanding to LinkedIn in November 2023. Because she mainly posts casual content showing her cold-calling from home, she said she was initially worried about how it might be received on a platform like LinkedIn, which she viewed as more buttoned-up.

“I was so hesitant because LinkedIn is not that type of platform,” she said.

The results of posting on the platform, though, surprised her. “I found a community of people that were doing the exact same thing, day in and day out, and were really resonating with the challenges and the rejection that you face [in sales] every single day,” she told us.

Now Uy posts lifestyle and personal content alongside professional content, and she 

: whether the topic is a business trip, mental health, or the impact of layoffs, creators are sharing more on the platform, and 

. For Uy, it only took about seven months of posting as a creator on the platform before she inked her first brand deal.

One of Uy’s most successful branded posts to date based on impressions, she told us, is a recent vlog-style video created in partnership with the AI roleplaying tool Luster, in which she showcases a Chanel bag she says she purchased after using the platform to hone her cold-calling skills.

Uy has worked with a wide range of brand partners ranging from Adobe to e.l.f. Cosmetics, and when it comes to finding the right fit, she told us she’s seeking those receptive to “lifestyle crossover” content given its success with her audience.

Derella said lifestyle content can be particularly effective, even in a B2B environment. “One of the things that is clearly working is just humans talking like experts,” he said. “B2B often can be bland and boring…and people want to buy from people they know and trust.”

According to Derella, LinkedIn is seeing increasing interest from luxury brands, in addition to B2B brands. Aneesh Lal, founder of the LinkedIn creator agency The Wishly Group, said he’s also seeing more interest from retail, travel, and hospitality brands as aspirational content becomes more prominent on the platform.

“The amount of questions that we get about our creators on their routines, ‘How often do they work out?’ ‘Do they journal?’ ‘What podcasts do they listen to?’” said Lal, whose agency represents Uy and 31 other LinkedInfluencers. “These questions have nothing to do with business. They have to do with the person behind the professional, because people are like, ‘I want to get to that level.’”

As marketers grapple with brand-safety concerns, LinkedIn could be viewed as having fewer bots and more professional, less polarizing conversations, Lal said. For creators, he said it can also offer a less cutthroat environment where they can break through without having millions of followers. But that doesn’t mean it’s the right place for all nonprofessional content, and certain creators may struggle to connect with the platform’s audience.

“It has to have a creative corporate bridge to it,” Lal said. “There must be a workplace element tied to it, otherwise folks on that platform will think someone’s lost.’

Despite having nearly double the number of followers on TikTok, Uy said she considers herself to be a LinkedInfluencer first. For that reason, she continues to push brands to include the platform in all of her cross-platform partnership deals—largely because of the quality of her audience there.

“When I think of 90,000 people on LinkedIn, those are 90,000 legitimate people that have occupations,” Uy said. “When I consider 175,000 on TikTok, I don’t know who that is. I don’t even know if that is my target audience.”

Still, taking advantage of LinkedIn’s audience can be challenging. Noah Eisemann, global managing director of social and influencer at VML, told us he envisions a “massive boom” for LinkedIn— if only it would allow creators and advertisers to better utilize its network data to improve reach. (VML has a 

 with Microsoft, LinkedIn’s parent company, and the agency has also supported some 

“One of the hardest things about LinkedIn is the data you can capture and is and just how walled of a garden it is as a platform,” he said. “That’s one of the biggest things holding back its widespread adoption, how they’ve decided to gatekeep their data.”

As LinkedIn seeks to grow its influencer business and compete with other social platforms, it may have to address other potential hurdles, like content reach and measurement capabilities. Both Lal and Uy said that the platform’s algorithm can be difficult to assess week over week, and which seems to prioritize different types of posts on a rotating basis.

“I think LinkedIn is at that phase where they’ve transcended from being a job-hunting platform to a knowledge-economy platform,” Lal said. “There is a completely different narrative there on what type of content shows up and how it shows up, so I still think they’re learning that.”

Uy said she has also faced glitches when exporting impressions, and Lal said his agency relies on creators to share reporting numbers themselves due to limited visibility into metrics. Still, Lal said he’s encouraged by recent updates, like this month’s 

Derella confirmed that LinkedIn is experimenting, and he said there’s “no set playbook” on when or how to post because “every creator is different.” LinkedIn is also working on ways to improve the experience for agencies working with creators on the platform, he told us.

“We’re definitely in the market, and we’re listening,” he said.

As for creator compensation, will LinkedIn ever get the kind of built-in monetization options that platforms like YouTube or TikTok offer? Derella said he envisions a future where “there may be opportunities for [LinkedIn] to share in the economics” of creator/brand relationships and tie more content to advertising. For now, he said, the focus is on boosting the platform’s video shows and expanding from there.

“What we’re doing now is focusing on nailing it before we scale it,” he said.

Despite the growing pains, Lal said he remains bullish on LinkedIn, comparing the current moment to the early days of creator/brand partnerships on other platforms.

“Imagine Instagram 15 years ago, and you got to be like, ‘Who would I scoop up today?’” he said. “[Brands] now have the chance to do that on LinkedIn.”

Photo collage of a business man behind a ring light.

How LinkedIn became a breakout platform for content creators 

The networking site is courting creators who say they can find engaged audiences on the platform, but there are still kinks to be worked out. 

This story is the second in a series exploring how brands craft standout social media strategies. If you’d like to chat about how your brand is approaching social, Katie Hicks wants to hear about it. Reach out to her at hicks@morningbrew.com.

If you recently became acquainted with Amtrak’s social media presence through a 

 reminiscent of old monster truck rally ads, you’re not alone.

The national passenger railroad is upgrading its trains, stations, and infrastructure and entering a “modern era of rail,” according to Jessica Davidson, VP of digital and brand management at Amtrak, so it was only natural for the brand to take a fresh approach to social media.

“We’re this storied brand, and we’re modernizing,” Davidson told us. “As we move forward to increase ridership, we recognize all the things that we do in our strategy need to break through.”

Last year, Amtrak set an all-time ridership record of 32.8 million, and Davidson said its sights are now set on attracting prospective younger riders as part of a goal to reach 66 million riders by 2040. So far, what seems to be getting zillennials, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha to stop scrolling (and perhaps consider taking the train) is content that Naleen Camara, senior social media specialist at Amtrak, calls “brain-rotty,” or posts that one might not expect from a legacy brand. Camara said the recent attention on the account, though, has been a long time coming.

“I like to think we’ve been funny for a while,” Camara told us. “People are really just starting to take notice.”

One of the earliest instances of Amtrak playing around with humor, Camera said, was in 2023 when the brand 

 what it described as conductor “fan art” inspired by anime and, in response to the social comments, proceeded to 

 who the man could be for a social campaign.

“A lot of our fans were like, ‘Oh my God, that looks like this conductor on this train or this conductor in this station,’ so we were like, ‘Okay, let’s make a whole story out of it,’” Camara said.

It’s an approach that is indicative of the brand’s larger social strategy. “We’ve really tried to listen to our audience and really respond to what they resonate with,” she told us.

Overall, experimental content has been key to Amtrak’s online strategy, to the point where Camara’s internal team of three and agency partners at Little Buddy schedule regular brainstorms to develop “out-there content” and identify trends they could participate in.

“We really love utilizing sounds and songs online that you wouldn’t typically associate with a travel brand,” Camara said. “It’s fun, and it makes us more personable.”

Tapping into nostalgia has also been a winning strategy, Davidson said, as evidenced by its “traintacular” monster-truck video, which has amassed more than 500,000 likes across TikTok and Instagram. The intent behind the post, according to Davidson, was to reach audiences that may be open to train travel—and she’s already seen comments from people who said they’ve become inspired to give Amtrak a shot.

Since that video went live the last week of June, Davidson said Amtrak has gained more than 60,000 followers across social channels and has seen more than 500,000 shares on that post alone. Past content has also seen a boost as audiences have gone back into the account’s archives and engaged with prior posts, Camara said.

“It’s a testament to how consistent we have been with this,” she said.

While silly content can be fun to make, there are also broader brand communication needs to consider. Camara said Amtrak takes an “infotainment” approach to social media overall, balancing tips, tricks, and promotions for train travel with more “kooky and chaotic” content.

“We have a very large audience, and people respond to messages differently,” Davidson added. “Having that variety in content is really important for us.”

With the brand’s legacy in mind, Camara recognizes that sometimes a trend can be too wacky and will only participate if it makes sense for Amtrak. Another video, in which Amtrak asked viewers to share with someone who “needs to touch grass,” made sense as part of the brand’s “chaotic, brain-rot” content and ended up performing well, Camara said, even if there was a risk that the message could be seen as rude. The plan, she said, is to continue building on that series.

“It truly hits when you’re looking through the comment section and somebody’s telling you, ‘I had to double-check to make sure this was Amtrak,’ instead of some random person making this video on our behalf,” Camara said.

With Amtrak’s new NextGen Acela trains scheduled to enter service soon, Davidson said the brand is preparing an infotainment strategy to let people know about the new fleet in both a fun and informative way.

“We’re in a place where creativity is celebrated,” she said. “We’re willing to put ourselves out there.”

stills from Amtrak's social media posts, including an anime-style conductor and a video to send to "someone who needs to touch grass," on a collage of mobile phone screens

Behind Amtrak’s ‘chaotic brain rot’ social strategy

The passenger railroad balances humor with informative posts to cater to a wide range of potential customers, an exec told us.  

It wasn’t long ago that a new app asked users to BeReal. Now, that same platform is hoping to BeRelevant again.

The app, in which users post one front-facing and back-facing photo per day, peaked in popularity around 2022. After it was acquired by French mobile games publisher Voodoo last year, Voodoo has been quietly building what Ben Moore, managing director of US operations, describes as “BeReal 2.0,” fixing bugs and UI issues while adding features like video and chat in the hopes of enticing a new set of users.

“We’ve been able to prevent churn, patch stability, we’re seeing new users come to the platform for the first time, and the OG users that have been loyal from 2021 [and] 2022 are still around,” Moore told Marketing Brew. In April of this year, the platform 

 it had around 40 million monthly active users. (Instagram, for comparison, had more than 2 billion monthly active users as of January, according to Sensor Tower data 

As BeReal has courted new users, it’s also been courting advertisers in the US since April, when it first introduced sponsored content on the platform. So far, that strategy has included making a debut appearance at Cannes Lions, where BeReal hosted a party for nearly 500 attendees and left with the plan to return next year with an “even bigger presence,” Moore said.

BeReal has also recently rolled out cost-per-click-based insertion orders and paid amplification on organic posts. There are also new sections of the app, like Nearby, where users can see public posts from people around them as well as a feed called Friends of Friends that displays content from followers’ followers, both of which also offer new places for brands to advertise, Moore said.

Even with new features, the question remains whether BeReal can carve out a lasting space beside its endless-scroll competition—or whether the appetite for a slower, more intentional online experience is indeed growing.

When BeReal first took off, it didn’t take long for brands like Chipotle and American Eagle to start experimenting with the platform, offering 

 to brand superfans. At the time, there were some limits to how many followers an account could have, but that’s no longer the case, Moore said, meaning brands have an opportunity today to reach more organic users than they did in years past.

Despite BeReal’s dedicated user base, downloads of the app have 

 50% in the last year, according to Sensor Tower data cited by Business Insider, and some existing users have 

 about the introduction of in-feed and takeover ads to the platform. Combined with posting limits that don’t exist on other social media platforms, some advertisers may wonder what the value proposition of the BeReal audience is.

Moore said the platform’s biggest selling point is a more intentional way to engage with younger customers. “BeReal is not a platform for reach, unlike Instagram, TikTok or even Snapchat,” Moore said. “It’s more about engaging or talking to Gen Z in a meaningful way.”

According to Moore, who previously worked at TikTok, about 70% of BeReal users post every day, driven in part by the knowledge that in order to see other posts on the app, they must post first.

“That translates into a level of engagement that is so much better than on TikTok, Insta, and Snap,” he said.

BeReal has already worked with advertisers like Levi’s, Nike, and Amazon, and Moore said top-performing brand content has tended to look much like the organic content brands were posting years ago, including behind-the-scenes looks, limited offerings, and creator content. Putting Gen Z faces behind (and in front of) the camera has also proven to be a campaign booster, he noted, whether it’s a brand community manager or a creator partner.

“Whenever [a brand] can work with a creator that produces a piece of content that they can utilize for paid amplification on BeReal, they are going to see ultimately greater results for their campaigns,” he said.

In general, Moore said he’s noticed a “resurgence” in the number of content creators, specifically micro-influencers, on BeReal.

“They want to show that there isn’t a big team behind this, that they’re doing everything themselves,” he said. “They know that BeReal can be the place for that.”

What BeReal might lack in reach, it is hoping to make up for in stability and safety, Moore said. In addition to benefiting from the 

 of competitor platforms like TikTok, he said, mounting concerns over the mental health impact of social media have led to increased inbounds for BeReal.

“The fact that we don’t want to keep users scrolling endlessly on the app, that we just want them to open up the app, check in on their friends or the people they care about, and go back to living their best life, resonates really well,” Moore said, adding that it “also translates into business reach.”