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Acquisition Channel Opportunities: Reddit Video, FB Ads Memes, AR Content Marketing

Video marketing is notoriously difficult. Sure, you may invest in high-quality videos, but is anyone even watching them? Here's the good news: Reddit recently acquired a company that may help people just like you. Learn how memes can double your conversion rate with Facebook Ads. Also, learn how augmented reality (AR) may be the new frontier of content marketing.

These are the topics I'll cover in this week's acquisition channels report. Let's get started :)

1. Can't Get Traction With Facebook Ads? Try Memes.

Daniel S., the CEO of the Snow Agency, recently tweeted that his agency A/B tested several creative formats for their FB ads. The conversion rates were:

  • 4%
  • 3%
  • 3.3%
  • 7.7%

Guess what type of content was behind the 7.7% number?

Memes. They also gave them the most positive comments.

I'm personally seeing an increasing number of memes-as-ads on my Facebook news feed. Here's one example:

slack-meme

What this means for you: As people get more familiar with memes, meme marketing is likely to become more effective. If you need inspiration for your ads, take a look at this HubSpot article with some great examples.

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2. Producing Video? Why Reddit Wants To Become Your Next Big Acquisition Channel

After analyzing 487 interviews with startup founders, it was surprising to me that few of them are leveraging YouTube as an acquisition channel. For those that succeeded with YouTube, their success was dependant on consistency or a viral video that gave exposure to the rest of their videos.

One of those founders was [Will Kwan], a vlogger making videos about startups, who mentioned this in his Indie Hackers interview:

My breakout video was "How My Dumb Mobile Game Got 400k Downloads." After this video went viral, a bunch of my older videos started getting recommended to people as well.

The main point is: YouTube is not friendly to new creators. According to data provided by TubeFilter, it takes an average of 22 months for a channel to reach 1,000 subscribers on YouTube.

Reddit is trying to change that. They recently acquired Dubsmash, a platform for making short videos. If you read Reddit's announcement, you'll notice this segment:

Dubsmash’s mission is to elevate under-represented creators.

Just as Reddit is a place for content you won’t see anywhere else on the Internet, Dubsmash provides a welcoming platform for up-and-coming creators and users who are under-represented in social media.

What this means for you: This is great news if you're doing video and don't want to spend an year without seeing results. Reddit has also announced they plan to integrate Dubsmash more tightly into their platform, giving video creators exposure to Reddit's 52M daily active users. Keep an eye on this space.


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3. AR: The Next Big Thing in Content Marketing?

Last week, Google announced it's going to integrate AR into Google Shopping. Snapchat has also announced the most inspiring AR campaigns of 2020.

What this means to you: Take a look at the Snapchat campaigns list. You'll notice that AR is all about relating to the user:

  1. You point your camera to something (your face, for example)
  2. Some transformation happens. You get a new makeup, you see new glasses on your face, etc.

Soon, there will be more opportunities to promote your AR creations (I've talked to FB support a month ago on whether I can advertise Instagram filters on their platform, and here's what they said):

augmented-reality

4. Trying to Predict Trends for 2021? Look No Further Than Pinterest.

Pinterest has released their "Pinterest Predicts" report, featuring 150+ trends they expect will rise in 2021. They had a pretty good track record for their 2020 report:

Today, 442 million people around the world use Pinterest to find tomorrow’s ideas. It’s a place to look forward. That means we know what's next. In fact, 8 out of 10 of our predictions for 2020 came true—despite it being the least predictable year in history.

Here's a preview of the PDF.

Should I continue with this series?. Let me know in the comments below. Also let me know if you have any questions (will make sure to respond to all of them).

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  1. 2

    Memes for FB ads - super idea. I haven't tried it in the complex B2B ad space. Thanks again for sharing!

    1. 1

      Hope to find more examples to post. Glad you liked the post.

  2. 2

    Wow, these reports are getting better and better, keep up the good work!

    2 months ago, I've read a company that works with major brands, trying to make viral memes for them (or make use of existing memes like with your Slack example above).

    Memes are definitely an unexplored content format.

    1. 1

      Hi Nitrow,

      Out of curiosity, what company was that? Feel free to DM me

    2. 1

      Def agree, I just haven't found many people openly sharing their results. This was an interesting tweet, so I've decided to share it.

      1. 1

        Please share more meme-as-ads examples if you find any. This also applies to anyone reading this comment.

  3. 2

    The part about meme marketing was pretty interesting. Do you think the same thing would work with Twitter Ads?

    1. 1

      Yep, definitely. Just IMO make sure to send them to a % of your target market first and see their reaction, it's pretty easy to make a bad meme.

      1. 1

        This is probably the reason why so few companies succeed with this. It's not easy to make a good meme...but it's def worth it if you manage to do it).

  4. 1

    Thank you so much for sharing! And yes, keep it going :P

  5. 1

    Very insightful, thanks!

  6. 1

    This is awesome, thank you for the great ideas!

    Side note, might be a sign of the times, but I initially read your handle as "zero trousers" rather than "zero to users". (facepalm)

    1. 1

      Haha. You know you're the second person saying this? Haha

  7. 1

    Please continue this series! Do you think for a company like paperless.io (e-signature & document workflow) Pinterest would be a chance? Can I see somewhere what people are searching for there?
    Thanks for the great help!

    1. 1

      Pinterest looks mostly B2C to me, and most of its users are females. See if any competitors are there though, they may have found some unique angles.

  8. 1

    So I noted this down as a pretty good idea with the intention of trying it, and then ran across this while browsing: https://i.imgur.com/CQ9ZewS.png

    Probably the best ad I've seen all year on FB.

  9. 1

    I worry about memes creating a precedent of the product. Admittedly, I dont have much of a following at all, so I shouldn't be so rigid, but I am concerned that meme marketing might paint me a way I cant change. Has anyone shifted between memes and more "professional" marketing effectively?

    1. 1

      That is a good question I’m afraid I don’t have the answer to. Maybe some with more reputation management experience can chime in.

  10. 1

    Ok, so videos on Reddit then? Hmm I wonder what kind of videos would work there?
    Close to the edge on the memes part, but I guess that's the idea Darko?

    1. 1

      I'm not sure how exactly they'll integrate it, but pretty sure they'll give these videos good exposure. AFAIK, this platform is more oriented towards shorter videos.

      Hm...good point about the memes. Many sub-reddits are about funny/entertaining stuff. Many (like /r/startups, /r/entrepreneur) are about useful stuff as well, and pretty sure video will find its place there.

  11. 1

    I will try with memes right away!
    Tnx for this article!

    1. 1

      Thank you for reading!

  12. 1

    Great as always, Darko. Just subscribed to your series.

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