Here are some cringey ideas for your next viral social media post: photoshop your brand’s responses to Adam Levine’s dubious DMs; make a meme out of Will Smith slapping Chris Rock; or make your team do some variation of that corn song on TikTok. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a cheap dopamine thrill from the
How to Measure “Hard-to-Measure” Marketing Channels
By I’ve ranted endlessly about how marketing leaders refuse to invest in hard-to-measure marketing channels like PR, media, native social, events, many types of content, and word-of-mouth. But, never stepped up and made clear how to use metrics, imperfect though they may be, to turn impossible-to-measure into difficult, but possible. Sadly, I’ve never seen a high-quality
Which Subreddits Does Your Audience Follow? What Do They Talk About? Starting Today, SparkToro Has the Answers
By Today, we’re launching a new “Reddit” tab in SparkToro. It will show you the Subreddits to which the audience you search for most-heavily subscribes, and the text content of their Reddit posts. This feature is briefly available for all paid subscribers. In a few weeks, SparkToro is updating our prices & packages, at which time
Introducing SparkTogether 2022: Because the Marketing World Needs Better, More Unique Events
By On November 10th, we’re running SparkToro’s first-ever marketing summit: SparkTogether. It’s live. It WON’T be recorded (because our presenters are sharing confidential numbers and information). And we’d love to have you there. For details and tickets, check out the SparkTogether 2022 Event Page, or read on for more background. Early bird tickets are on sale
Zero-Click Content: The Counterintuitive Way to Succeed in a Platform-Native World
By Update: We hosted a SparkToro Office Hours webinar about Zero-Click content on August 23. Sign up free to watch the replay. It could be a chicken or egg situation: Maybe the platforms have made us lazy, or we’ve trained their algorithms to reward platform-native content — as in, content that keeps people on the platforms’
SparkToro Demographics: 3 Underrated Ways to Upgrade Your Marketing
By It’s been about one year since we launched Demographics in SparkToro, and it’s one of our most popular features. Many of our customers use the insights to develop personas, run programmatic ads, evaluate brand marketing partnerships, and more. But I have a feeling there are even more creative use cases that our community hasn’t yet
The Episodic Content Creator’s Guide to Using SparkToro
By Last Saturday, I received an email from Rich Wilan, founder of Fascinate Productions. Rich and his team help podcast creators build audiences and top charts, and they’re very good at their work, helping clients like Zoe: Science & Nutrition, Startup Dads, A Cuppa Happy (and more) launch, grow, and reach chart-topping numbers. Rich kindly gave
Google, Apple, and Amazon Stifle Innovation When They Favor Their Own Products
By The SparkToro team got an exciting surprise on Sunday evening: a mention of our research on Last Week Tonight by John Oliver. The full episode, Big Tech Monopolies, is available on YouTube. It covers an issue I’ve railed against before, but with a heightened sense of urgency: there is actually a bipartisan bill in Congress
You Don’t Need a Buyer Persona. You Need Multiple Audience Personas.
By Update: We hosted a SparkToro Office Hours webinar about audience personas. Sign up to watch the replay. I have a bone to pick with buyer personas, but it’s only because I like them (in contrast to Rand who doesn’t like them; yes, we can disagree). My quibbles? There’s a misguided focus on demographics, arbitrarily chosen
SparkToro’s Mission, Vision, and Values: BELUX
By Those skilled in the art of BS detection can tell you that 99% of company mission, vision, and values statements are meaningless. For corporate ideals to be more than just blatant-hypocrisy-in-poster-form, leadership has to build them into the company’s operating systems: how they hire/fire/promote, how they prioritize product investments, treat customers, make decisions around funding