Come On, Barbie, Let’s Go Viral

There’s No Twitter 2.0 Plan

For many companies, I’ll include links to changes they PLAN on making to the platform, even if they haven’t shipped yet. I don’t do that for Twitter 2.0. Why? Because Elon’s personal money destruction machine is terrible at both building product and product comms. 

April 1st was supposed to be the day those pesky entitled legacy Blue Checks would lose their precious status symbol. Instead, they changed the language on verification badges so you can’t tell if someone paid for it via Blue or had it pre-Elon. Then just to be petty, Elon had his team remove the New York Time’s verification check. Elon does this at other companies too. Over promise, under deliver is a familiar tactic for him. 

So unless a proposed change is just wildly funny or there’s some external reason to think it might actually happen, I just ignore it. Call me when you ship changes. 

Platform Updates

Instagram 

• Instagram Tests New Birthday Profile Effect (right after my birthday? rude) 

• Instagram Tests New Process to Help Users Engage Over Interests In Common

The Rest of Meta 

• Meta Provides New Ad Placement Controls to Ensure Brand Safety

• Meta Previews Coming Generative AI Ad Tools, Prompts for VR World Creation

• Meta’s job cuts are gutting customer service, leaving influencers and businesses with nobody to call

TikTok

• TikTok Fined $15.9 Million in the UK for Allowing Underage Users to Access the Platform

Twitter

• Twitter Publishes its Tweet Ranking Algorithm Data on GitHub, Providing More Transparency in Process

  • This Twitter thread does a good job of breaking down what this code actually means

• Twitter Updates Description on Verified Accounts, Making it Impossible to Distinguish Paying Profiles

• Elon Musk takes away The New York Times' blue checkmark, apparently out of spite

Substack 

• Substack is getting tweets — err, ‘Notes’ (let me know if you’d be interested in reading ‘notes” from me. I was thinking maybe use it during the week to follow up with links related to recent newsletter topics.)

• Twitter cuts off Substack embeds and starts suspending bots ( *shakes fist* ) 

LinkedIn 

• LinkedIn Adds Algorithmically Suggested Posts to Boost Engagement

Pinterest (disclosure: I’m currently working as a contractor with Pinterest) 

• Pinterest expands its Creator Fund for underrepresented groups to five more countries

Twitch 

• Twitch is trying out new sponsorship tools. Streamers are less than thrilled.

Snap 

• Snapchat Adds Generative AI Profile Backgrounds for Snapchat+ Subscribers

Culture Movers 

Film & TV

• https://puck.news/netflix-the-most-valuable-real-estate-in-hollywood/ 

Music 

• YouTube will livestream all six Coachella stages across both weekends

Creator Economy 

• Spotify shuts down its Clubhouse-style audio app Spotify Live 

Scams

• Twitter’s new dog icon is sending dogecoin — sigh — to the moon 

  • Related: Elon Musk $258 billion Dogecoin lawsuit expands

  • Please, regulators, fine Elon into poverty and/or throw him in jail. The more market manipulation he gets away with, the more he’ll keep doing it.

This Barbie Writes a Newsletter

Teaser images, set photos, and memes had been circulating around Gay Twitter™ and Film Twitter® for a while, building up a slow but steady buzz of excitement around the upcoming Greta Gerwig Barbie film. On Tuesday, the movie’s marketing machine roared to life, dropping character posters and a new trailer. Barbie mania took hold of the internet on Tuesday, overshadowing the much-anticipated presidential indictment in many corners of the internet. If your social feeds are anything like mine, you’re still seeing Barbie-inspired posts and memes.

A long-running joke with social media pros is that we’re often asked to “just make it go viral” by frustrating clients and managers. The Barbie marketing team actually pulled that off this week. So I want to pull out some of the tactics used here to achieve that. 

They Went Deep 

Michael Cera appears as Allan, a friend of Ken’s from the 60s who was discontinued after just a few years. Emerald Fennell plays Midge, a pregnant doll who was not sold for much of the Barbie line’s history. The inclusion of these two got hardcore Barbie fans chattering by effortlessly proving the production had done its homework. Sometimes as marketers, we assume it’s our job to educate our audience about our products and services, but sometimes the consumer already knows a lot. Getting deep into the science, lore, or history surrounding the space you are in can help you build trust and get people talking. 

They Let Some Mystery 

Why should we call Will Ferrell mother? What happened to Kate McKinnon’s Barbie? What’s the plot of this movie even? The trailer doesn’t tell us! And that’s great. Curiosity is a powerful emotion, and while mystery isn’t an easy beat for every brand to pull off, it worked really well here. Leave folks guessing so they want to follow you along the journey you’re creating. If it’s fun, people will go for it. 

They Gave Us a Template

The volume of character posters was probably the biggest thing that got people remixing it as a meme. They could have spaced these out, dropping them over several days or weeks, but instead, all the posters hit simultaneously. The Barbie team gave meme makers a very clear visual language to play around with. Humans pick up patterns really well, and having this many images in the same format turns those patterns into rules. Memes are kinda like improv; you want to identify the rules of the game and keep “yes anding” your way through new riffs on the core idea until people stop laughing. A clear pattern makes for clear rules and easy iterative jokes. 

It’s not just the poster layout; the copy is also a template. “This Barbie is a_____” The genius here is that playing with the pattern created by the copy often requires you to repeat the brand name. Barbie! 

If you’d like to make your own Barbie poster meme, this helpful tool makes it super easy. Have fun! 

In Conclusion

Here’s a fun video.