How To Sell Through Social Media Without Taking Yourself Too Seriously
In today’s world, audiences crave authenticity, not ads. What happens when you ditch the traditional marketing playbook in favour of something more real, more ridiculous, and way more fun? Jonathan Taylor, Senior Sales & Marketing Manager, Phantom Peak (the amazing venue for our upcoming Social Media Fest), tells us why he loves to use humour, live experiences, and community-driven content.
CONTENT DOESN’T HAVE TO SELL
Social media is for discovery and conversion alike.
Want to find the perfect new outfit? Add it to your board on Pinterest.
Like what that influencer wears? Buy with their link.
Want to find somewhere cool to go? Search for inspiration on TikTok.
Search engines are still important, but social is the place to be.
That does come with challenges… people are getting more and more tech-savvy. They’re too clever for us marketers! They don’t like to be sold to.
I don’t know about you, but anything appearing on my feed that references TikTok shop and I immediately scroll. Audiences want brands to feel real, to feel authentic, to feel part of their feed not a forced addition to it. People love it when brands do something stupid. They hate it when brands are trying to be ‘down with the kids’. We can’t win.
HUMOUR IS EVERYTHING
So at Phantom Peak, we don’t take ourselves too seriously. We’re a comedy product at our core. We sell a 4-hour live experience that takes you into this alternate world where people worship a cosmic platypus and idolise a super sexy, super hot guy called Jonas. We can’t exactly create beautiful infographics, send that out to our audience, and sleep well at night.
Wherever you find us, we aren’t all that serious. We don’t care for engagement rate or those other metrics, we just want to drive conversation and make people laugh. If we get DMs, comments, or spark a conversation in our Discord community, we know we’ve done something right. That’s our metric: someone getting social with us!
IF STORIES ARE KING, LIVE POSTING IS THE EMPEROR
Interactive stickers, live Q&As, real-time responses. That’s what keeps our community coming back again and again.
And that’s not just limited to those ‘traditional platforms’. We’re always thinking about ‘social’ as just that, a way to keep in touch with our community wherever they are. An ecosystem to create return visitors and nurture. So we literally have a community – a fan-run, dedicated space for them to talk about us; to get social with us.
LET THEM SPEAK!
We’re a small company. We have a small team and limited resources. So the best way to reach new people and showcase the product? Bring other people in! We run regular events, at least every 3 months, with multiple influencers of all shapes and sizes. From gamers to mums, we bring as many of them in as possible. We give them the best experience we can, and we provide a rough idea of what we want them to showcase. Our influencer 3-stage plan, every 3 months?:
We don’t pay them, we brief them.
We feed them and we water them.
We give them a good time and follow up; they usually post!
The age of micro influencers is upon us people!
Don’t forget the little guy.
BUT HOW DO YOU DO IT!
We’re a live experience, so it’s easy. We exist to build relationships, to create real experiences that people can truly live. Want to know more about Phantom Peak? The best way is to come along and try it out. You’ll speak to live actors, other guests, uncover stories that keep you coming back. Once we have you, that’s it. Welcome to the cult community.
What about the people who need a bit more convincing? Well, we created a character within our world that runs our social channels. They call our audience nerds and scold them when they don’t know the answer to a quiz (in a nice, friendly way of course!). They create that real experience online.
BEYOND ORGANIC
Alright, I can sing a song of not caring and just having fun, but everything comes back to sales. So all of this? It lives in our paid campaign as well. We try to convey the same tone; we work with creators to boost their content and sell through them; we sign people up to our Discord community and drop them discount codes. All of this is an ecosystem to keep people social, about your brand, at all times.
Join us in London at SocialDay’s Social Media Fest, 20-22 May, at Phantom Peak, to hear more from Jonathan Taylor on why humour in social media can be transformative. socialday.co.uk
