SOCIAL CHAIN: MASTER TREND MANIPULATORS

Morning!

I woke up on Christmas Day to a plethora of classic gifts you get as a man in your early 20’s.

Socks. Plain black t-shirts. Shower gel.

All which I was very grateful for. But it was my Nan’s gift that caught my eye. She gave me Steven Bartlett’s new book “The Diary Of A CEO - 33 Laws”.

I’ve been studying Steven’s journey for a while, but this book reminded me of just how sharp Steven is as a marketer.

Most people know him for his podcast or maybe his social media posts.

But everyone seems to forget just how influential he was to how we market on social media today.

And that all started with his breakout company - Social Chain.

Today, I’m going to show you exactly why they are so special.

Let’s get into it!

THE STRATEGY

At 22 years old, Steven Bartlett was a humble university dropout trying to grind his way to the top with his first company - Wallpark - which was supposed to be “The Gumroad for students”.

Unfortunately, Wallpark never became what Steven thought it could.

But it was while he was trying to grow Wallpark that he recognised a peculiar behaviour of young people on social media - especially on Twitter.

The behaviour: If many begin to take interest in a topic or product, others become interested and want to buy it.

It ain’t rocket science, but in today’s world it’s very obvious.

But while most companies noticed this and instantly opted for influencer marketing, Steven & his team didn’t.

Instead, they took a very different approach that looked something like this:

1) Understanding The Trend Snowball

When Bartlett started Social Chain he had clocked the power of a “Trend”. He knew that if he could just insert his clients names into a trend, results would follow.

But inserting yourself or a brand into a trending conversation is well… very very tough and often hit & miss.

So Bartlett decided that rather than trying to piggyback on “Trend Snowballs” that had already started rolling - he should just create his own.

But there was one problem… he had to be able to start the trend.

2) Attention Acquisition

There are 1 million and 1 ways a trend starts. But the two most common ways can be separated into two categories - omnipotent starts & omnipresent starts.

Omnipotent starts: This is when someone who has a huge pull on their audience is able to start a trend by virtually clicking their fingers. People like Mr. Beast, KSI, Logan Paul, etc.

Omnipresent starts: This is the true snowball effect where a group of people begin talking about something and then their audience talk about it, then their audience, until it seems like everyone everywhere is talking about it.

At the time it was way too expensive for Bartlett to get the likes of Logan Paul starting trends for him.

But he knew that if he was able to get the ball rolling, he could create these omnipresent starts.

All he needed was enough influence to make people feel like everyone else was talking about a topic.

So that’s exactly what he went out and did.

He began contacting the holders of micro-accounts (that had influence) on Twitter and buying their accounts.

Slowly but surely he built a portfolio of influence on Twitter.

So much so that he was able to start these snowball trends by having the accounts talking about the same thing at the same time.

3) Loaned Attention

Bartlett & his team at Social Chain now had the power to influence millions of people on social media, all at the click of a button.

But if they were going to work with big name brands, they needed more than just a little influence, they needed stuff to trend No.1 in the country.

This is where Social Chain’s loaned attention strategy came in.

Rather than just utilising their own accounts to push their campaigns, they began signing contracts with even larger accounts to promote certain campaigns.

They would get these accounts to:

• Push the topic they wanted trending

• Advertise their clients products

• Engage on their accounts posts to boost them

Now, they didn’t just make it seem like a lot of people were talking about a topic. They made it seem like EVERYONE was talking about it.

And the bigger the perceived trend, the stronger influence it has.

4) Turning Snow Into Money

So what? They were able to make things go viral… who cares?

Answer: Major brands like PUMA, BBC, KFC, Coca-Cola, and all of the other massive clients Social Chain work with.

Because there is nothing more powerful in modern-day marketing than being able to make things trend.

Which is why so many companies are investing so heavily into TikTok nowadays.

If you’re able to make people feel like everyone is in on something, they want to be in on it too.

So if you’re able to make something snowball, you bet you’ll be able to make a hell of a lot of money too!

 🌱 THE GREENHOUSE

Things I’ve saved this week that are worth seeing:

• A simple storytelling tip from my favourite storyteller (See here)

• Top 1% ideas from 2023 (See here)

• An recent follow of mine that’s been keeping me motivated over Christmas (See here)

TL;DR

1. Understand the trend snowball - It’s like FOMO at scale, on social media.

2. Acquire attention - It’s nearly impossible to generate enough attention on your own, but you can buy a “portfolio of influence” in each niche.

3. Loan attention - It’s much more powerful & scalable if you rent extra attention for each campaign.

4. Turn the snowball into money - If your campaign is good and successfully trends, you’ll more than likely print money. Because money goes where attention flows.

It’s no surprise Social Chain grew as quickly as it did when you see just how deep their understanding of social media (and more importantly influence) is.

It does make me wonder why someone hasn’t done something similar in the B2B space yet. Maybe they have and we just haven’t noticed yet?

Either way, so much to learn from studying what they did at Social Chain.

That’s all I’ve got for you today. Another year down and 128 newsletters issues in the bank!

Until next Sunday.

— Niall

WAIT… BEFORE YOU GO

THAT’S ALL!

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This has been a breakdown of Social Chain’s marketing strategy. I hope you have learned something and can implement a similar strategy in your business!

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