TRIPLE WHALE: TAKING OVER TWITTER WITH A WHALE EMOJI

Morning! I recently made the move to delete TikTok, Facebook and Instagram from my phone. I wanted to improve my content diet and felt like those 3 platforms were just full of shit I didn't want to see - so I got rid of them. Turns out it's been a game-changer. It's allowed me to start picking up little hints of great marketing on LinkedIn and Twitter - and this nifty tactic was one of them.

It's an absolute gem. So buckle up.

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Breaking Down The Strategy

You probably already know this by now, but my career in marketing started in the personal branding industry.

Over the last 3 years, the industry has exploded with many large companies having different beliefs on what personal branding is and how they can utilise it to benefit them. But honestly, I feel like the majority of companies have completely misunderstood the real power of personal branding and instead leverage it to gain a couple of worthless followers on LinkedIn.

Great, now your C-Suite has 10k followers each on LinkedIn! But they're also renowned for the cliche bullsh*t posts they put out fishing for likes...

This is a liability for their company - not an asset.

Many do it wrong (very wrong) but this week I came across a company doing it very right, in the simplest way possible.

Meet Triple Whale

Honestly, I'd never heard of Triple Whale before last week and had absolutely no clue what they do. But I've been following a guy called Tommy Clark on Twitter for a while now. He puts out some unreal content and is a favourite follow of mine.

He has a whale in his username, but I thought maybe that was just his thing or maybe he just loved the company he worked at?

Then this week I came across Alexa Kilroy - who also puts out great content, and also had a whale in her Twitter name. I thought it couldn't be a coincidence, so I checked out her profile...

Turns out she also worked at Triple Whale (just like Tommy).

It got me wondering if these two just LOVED the company they worked at or if this was a Triple Whale "thing". So I headed to her following.Next minute, I'm scrolling through a whole list of people with a whale emoji in their Twitter name.

• Tommy Clark - Head of Social: 7.5K followers

• Alexa Kilroy - Head of Brand: 5.5K followers

• Aj Orbach - Co-Founder: 2.5K followers

• Kevin Nesum - Community: 4K followers

• Rabah Rahil - CMO: 8K followers

This wasn't just a one-person thing, this was a whole company thing.

But why does the whale emoji matter?

There are a couple of reasons why the whale emoji is such a great marketing move...

1. Number one is obvious... the reach.

It's the classic thing personal branding agencies will spout at you... but it's true. Personal brands get much more reach & engagement than company brands (on social).

And that's particularly true in this case.

The Triple Whale Twitter account has 11k followers. Those 5 personal brands (listed above) alone have 27,500 followers on Twitter. The company brand simply can't compete, it's not even close.

2. Who wouldn't be curious about a whale in someone's Twitter name?

The only reason I know who Triple Whale are and what they do is because I saw a whale emoji in a bunch of people's names and got curious.

How many other people will do the same? A lot.

It's a crazily effective way to have your employees wear your brand like a badge of honour in a simple way that everyone can see.

And when they see the emoji, they're destined to be curious enough to check out the site.

The easiest way to generate site traffic ever.

3. The great employee growth loop

Great people make great companies.

And after reading through some killer content from Triple Whale staff, my exact thought is "Oooo that Triple Whale company must be decent". Next minute, Triple Whale have created this crazy growth loop:

It's a winner winner all around for Triple Whale. They get to showcase how great their employees are and in return, they are able to attract more great employees.

Did someone say snowball effect?

How you can Whale in some traffic through your team

Excuse the horrendous joke.

But this is a really simple strategy to implement. In fact, it's one I'm currently looking to implement with my team.

Here's the process I'd recommend:

1. Choose an emoji (Twitter) and head colour (LinkedIn)

This is super simple. But make sure you have something that stands out. For us that's gold (still trying to figure out an emoji for Twitter).

2. Incentivise employees to make the switch

No, you can't force your employees to change their LinkedIn head colour or add an emoji to their Twitter. What sort of company culture is that?

What you can do though is incentivise them. For us, we're doing that through little landmark bonuses.

Some examples- 2.5K followers: Free meal out- 5K followers: £50 voucher- 10K followers: Weekend away

If they're promoting you, you have to reward them for it.

3. Trust them

There is no bigger red flag than a company that hinders an employee's personal growth.

If you trust your team, let them post what they want, and encourage them.

Want to start a newsletter? Help them do it.Want to start a podcast? Fund their set-up.Not sure how to get PR? Show them how.

And if you don't trust your team to represent you on socials... well, why in the world did you hire them?

99% of the personal branding industry has gone to shite. But the 1% who get it, they're the ones who are going to dominate their industry over the next 5-10 years.

I plan on being in that 1% and you probably should too.

That's all for today!Have a cracking Sunday, chat next week.

— Niall

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

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