
In this episode, Sarah quizzes nate on a fascinating study co-authored by Jason Pallant that analyzed nearly 21,000 tweets from celebrity chefs, fashion bloggers, and personal trainers. The surprising insight? The most retweeted posts aren’t hot...
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Nate
Welcome back to Brain Driven Brands with Sarah Levinger. As always, I'm the other guy. What's up, Sarah? How are you?
Sarah
You're just the other one in the room. There's just some guy that comes in sometimes and talks about things. I did have somebody ask me the other day, which was, like, the randomest comment I've gotten in my DMs. He asked me which one of us actually owned the show. He was like, this is a weird question, but, like, it. Is it Nate's show or is it show? And he. He was very kind and was like, I'm asking a genuine question. I'm not trying to, like, offend you. And I was instantly offended.
Nate
Yeah, I don't.
Sarah
Come on.
Nate
Yeah, I mean, it's definitely Sarah's show. I also don't think we've even had the ownership discussion because it doesn't generate revenue, so who cares who owns it?
Sarah
Hey, hey, hey. I got a sponsor. Yeah, I have somebody who's interested in sponsoring. Only after, like, almost a year did we get somebody who was like, hey, you guys are weird enough. We might try it. We'll see. Yeah. Scotty, aren't you proud of me?
Nate
Like, sponsorship incoming. The next episode, 20 minutes of Ask My Credit.
Sarah
Oh, hi, dog. To my credit, for a long time, I just didn't take any sponsors. Mostly because I was like, well, maybe we'll just have Tether sponsor this. This show and it'll just be like my business is the one that sponsors. But then I forgot that, like, sponsors usually pay people.
Nate
Right? Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I thought this was a non profit. I've been just donating hours to, you.
Sarah
Know, It's a good cause. You're doing great.
Nate
Thanks.
Sarah
By the people of D2C coming on my podcast and not getting paid for. I don't know, though, because I. I was. Yes, thank you, Scotty. I was gonna say I am basically consulting for free every single week for a good hour.
Nate
All right.
Sarah
If not longer. But today I have.
Nate
We're also paying you for that.
Sarah
Okay.
Nate
We're also sort of.
Sarah
Now you are a client. That's very true.
Nate
All right.
Sarah
You don't pay me to consult on the show. Okay, back to what I was saying, though. Okay. I have more psychology based quizzes for you today because I feel like we haven't done one in a while. So you want to do a quiz?
Nate
Well, we did that one that was like all quiz, all show that I crushed.
Sarah
Yes, but you crushed it. So now I want to go back to ones that there's no way you could get this. So I feel better about, like, being the psychology guru, because I technically am. Okay. All right, so today we're opening with a quiz for Nate. I want to tell you a little bit about a psychology based study. You get to answer as to what you think the study was about. And this is going to be a little bit different. I'm going to give you three options to decide which one of these is true. So out of these three tweet styles that I'm going to tell you about next, which one do you think gets shared the most? We're going to talk about influencers and creating viral content today. So I'm going to give you three tweets. You tell me which one gets shared the most. First one, Angry short outbursts. Like, this is horrible. Nobody should ever do this. This is the worst. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Angry short outbursts. Number two, a personal fact. Like, I spent 10 hours going through 50,000 influencer whatever, and this is what I found. Personal facts, something that I did. And last one, a story about somebody else. So something like sometimes the people around you don't understand your journey, and that's okay. So which one of these? So we got angry facts, angry outbursts, personal facts like I did xyz and then a story about somebody else. Like, sometimes people don't do whatever.
Nate
You want to know which one gets shared the most?
Sarah
Shared the most. Yep. This is a study that they just ran.
Nate
Specifically shared, not engaged with.
Sarah
Shared. Yep. So people liked it enough that they wanted other people in their circle to hear about. This is a metric that I follow very closely when it comes to content in particular, because personally, Sarah believes engagement is a much better indicator of what people like and want to be known for than just like clicks or conversions or those type of things. I think shares are critical. So tell me, which one do you think this is? Tough short angry outburst. Personal facts or a story about somebody else?
Nate
I'm gonna go with the personal facts.
Sarah
You think personal facts. Okay.
Nate
Yeah.
Sarah
Final answer?
Nate
I guess sounds wrong.
Sarah
Okay, so we'll break this down. They did a study of 21,000 tweets from celebrity chefs, fashion bloggers, personal trainers, all kinds of people. They found that tweets that told stories about other people were retweeted 33% more than average tweets about other people. So you say things like, sometimes people around you won't understand your journey, and that's okay. Tweets about other people, facts about yourself got 15% fewer retweets, which I Mean, let me just say, Sarah tweets sometimes about things that I have learned and things that I've done. And in D2C, I'm like, isn't this what everybody does? Because they always do. Like, I ran a giant study on things earlier. I went and downloaded 50,000 reviews.
Nate
I made 55 landing pages. Here's what I learned about CRO.
Sarah
Here's what I learned. Yeah, facts about yourself. Got 15 fear retweets and short angry outbursts, down by 22%. So angry stuff on Twitter.
Nate
Probably why my content's not popping up.
Sarah
Because it's too angry. Too angry and too much about yourself, apparently. So this is really interesting if you guess. Answer C. Congratulations, you won the Internet. So why this is so powerful? Stories are how humans process the world. That's how we make sense of the world. So psychologically, this makes sense. But it's interesting because when an influencer shares something meaningful, especially about somebody else, we're more likely to connect with it because they're talking about somebody. This is why gossip is like a big deal in your teen years, because you're not talking about you. You're talking about somebody else that both of you might be able to hate together. So this is the reason why on Twitter, at least from this particular study, it pays to talk about somebody else.
Nate
So this is why in advertising, the ads that are like, meet Chris. Chris was looking for a great gift for whoever and like, blah, blah, blah, found us. Whatever. Like telling someone else's story.
Sarah
Yes, telling somebody else's story. I think this is also the reason why testimonials and quotes work pretty well for most brands, because they're not talking about themselves.
Nate
Right.
Sarah
They're talking about somebody else that had the experience with them. So there. And I have to go back up here because when I was doing more research on this, I was like, this is crazy. I've never even heard of this. So this is the reason why I think, like, politicians do really well on social media, because in general, they don't talk about themselves. They talk about the fact that, like, the other guys in general. Yes, News in general. I'm like, this is just insane because politicians figured it out, but marketers kind of haven't yet. Like, talk about somebody else. And specifically talking about somebody else in a way that makes it seem like that person's experience is something you're going to want to listen to. Pretty important.
Nate
Why? Okay, why? Why do humans operate like this? Because, like, it's the reason. The reason I don't watch the news and believe watching the news is unhealthy because 99 of it has nothing to do with anything in my life or your life. It's like, well, there's this one guy who got screwed by whatever and blah, blah, blah, vote for him. And it's like, okay, that has nothing to do with most people's lives, but it's getting clicks and views and attention, creating outrage.
Sarah
Yep.
Nate
But it was like, it's one guy's thing that doesn't matter to anyone. Like, why are we wired like that?
Sarah
I. I think this comes down to a little bit of memorability. This is just how the brain learns things. So the brain, when you're real small, you can't talk to anybody because you're a baby. You haven't learned language yet. So the only thing you can do is watch. Like, we've been trained to watch what other people do and mimic, right? So we go through. And my dad threw the ball like this. And so I pick it up and I try that. Right? So when we. When it comes to, like, memorizing things, when you hear stories that, like, are passed down, this is like a default mode for the brain of, I need to pay attention to this because somebody else did something that I possibly might need to know about so that I don't do the same thing. It's very, like, kind of lineage. Right. So we're just following other people. Secondary thing on this, I think, is stories. They've done tons of studies on this story. Boost emotional resonance. So you. You can connect with something a little bit better if there's a story to it. I could tell you, like, hey, my dog went to the vet the other day. That's a story. But it's a boring story.
Nate
Right?
Sarah
Or I could tell you my dog choked on a chicken nugget, Almost died. He turned freaking blue, and it was like he, like, peed all over my husband. This is a true story, by the way. Peed all over my husband. We rushed him to the event, and then they took the chicken nugget out, and he lived. No brain damage. Now that's a story.
Nate
Damn. Are you okay? Is the dog okay? What?
Sarah
Are we okay? That's what I want to know. Yeah, he's fine. He's, like, right here. Alive. Prove.
Nate
Great. Good job, dog. Sorry. You had a week.
Sarah
That's what I'm saying. So emotional resonance comes down to context. How much information in the story can we include to make sure that you understand the core premise of this, which is, the dog almost died, but he's okay, no more chicken nuggets lying on the floor. You know what I'm saying?
Nate
Yeah, you're good.
Sarah
This is interesting, what they were studying, though, because obviously this was just based on Twitter data. So it's not every platform. It was just tweets and they only analyzed text, so they weren't doing any images or anything like that. But in general, I think the real world tip here is we need to stop saying, we launched a new product, we have a sale, we're going to go do this like, this is a big deal for us. Instead, we need to say one of our customers told us a story, and then we decided to launch this sale because of what they told us, make it more like human and a little less like, just for the clicks, just for the virality of it. But okay, so caveat to this, and this is something that was really interesting in the study. There's only one specific group that can break this, like, rule. Can you guess which group it is on Twitter?
Nate
One group.
Sarah
One specific group of people that like the personal stories. It doesn't apply to them.
Nate
Oh, politicians then.
Sarah
Nope. Oh, nope, nope, nope. This is a weird group too. So there's one specific group that rage post in particular do really freaking well for, like, they see massive amounts of engagements and shares. Yeah, One group. It's a weird group.
Nate
What's the generation under us? Is it them?
Sarah
Gen Z? No, no, it's a specific group of, like, people in a career. It's like one career type.
Nate
Oh, there's a D2C marketers talking about metabol.
Sarah
Yes, it is. No, it's not. It's personal trainers.
Nate
Whoa.
Sarah
Why personal trainers? When they did the study, they found that personal trainers are much more likely to get engagement when they have an occasional angry outburst. Apparently on Twitter, if you're a personal trainer and you can get mad about, like Big Food or whatever it is, they apparently have a lot of engagement from that. Nobody else, just personal trainers. Now I want to know what's the psychology behind that? Why are we okay with personal trainers getting angry?
Nate
Is it because it's like, perceived as, like, righteous anger?
Sarah
Yes.
Nate
So it's perceived as like, we are being poisoned or like, so like Big Food is doing something wrong to us, so we have a right to be angry.
Sarah
Yeah. This is interesting because apparently it's just part of the brand. There's like a motivational fire from personal trainers that's widely accepted. Personal trainers are kind of angry.
Nate
Yeah.
Sarah
Because they're very like, push harder. No excuses. Like, just do it.
Nate
Yeah. They're not.
Sarah
But everybody else. Yeah. This is weird, though, because it's a social construct that's just naturally universally accepted from personal trainers alone. Like, you wouldn't accept that from your barista.
Nate
No. Like, absolutely.
Sarah
Getting you coffee. You wouldn't just be like, okay, get angry. No, that doesn't make any sense. So chefs and fashion bloggers, too, had kind of, like, slightly different patterns that kind of reflected what their audiences expected from them. So if you're going to grow on social media or if you're using influencers or if you're just drafting any sort of message, and this would be good, like a segue for your brand. Brand. You guys currently use a bunch of different influencers in different capacities.
Nate
Yep.
Sarah
You have to go and study the context of how their audience accepts them. If your country music singers are accepted for being a little angry on stage, it's totally fine if their kind of grunginess is attributed to your brand because their audience will accept it. This is called halo effect, right?
Nate
Yeah.
Sarah
So a halo effect is whatever. Whatever the entity is in the middle of the circle. If they are widely accepted, everything around them will be accepted too. This is the reason why Jake Paul is ridiculous. And all of his, like, antics on the Internet are just all over the place. People just accept him, though, because it's a part of the brand. And any other brand he touches also gets accepted, even though interesting. I can't get crazy like Jake Paul. Like, Sarah can't go out and just be punching people. That would not be acceptable.
Nate
Right. So, yeah, Tyson would kick the out of you.
Sarah
I could probably hold my own. I'm Hispanic.
Nate
I'm Hispanic. I think he fought a few Hispanics in his career, actually. I think he did okay.
Sarah
Well, my problem is I'm too nice. I'd go up there and I'd be like, please don't hurt me. Please don't hurt me. I have children.
Nate
So that's super interesting. So something I think of for us is, is watches are often bought as, like, to mark a milestone, to mark an accomplishment. One of our country guys has a song called Jack and Diet Coke that went gold a while ago. It's going platinum this week. We got him a new watch to celebrate that, and he's pumped. So, like, we should tell that story of, like, hey, I have a story about someone else that hit a big milestone in his career and in life. He celebrated it with a watch from OG to remember that moment in time. You who don't have a song that's going platinum, but Whatever your dumb little accomplishment was in your sad life, by watch.
Sarah
I mean, maybe don't say it that way, but yeah, similar to that. Yes. So that takeaway is like, if you're running influencer campaigns or any sort of social media in general, stop encouraging this. Like, just the facts kind of content we need to start pushing into. Here was the story. Here's what happened. Here's what was going down before we did this XYZ thing, this. I think I had a post. I can't remember which episode it was, but I had a very, very renowned guy. Come on. Oh, and now I can't remember his name. This is going to be terrible. Producer Scotty here, and his name is Dr. Thomas Troutman, was talking specifically about the fact that when you talk about your message or when you're trying to draft copy or anything on your site, we need to switch it from I or we. Where we talk about, we are the biggest this. We are the best at this. Flip it to you, right? You are this type of person, and that's why we align together. This is similar to that, where we're just pushing it outwards instead of marketing words. So, yeah, this is interesting, too, because it's Twitter. I thought Twitter, for sure. Angry posts have got to be the one that gets.
Nate
I sniffed that out as a miss. You did option. I was like, no, that's the obvious one. And then I thought about the other people's one. But I'm like, well, why is every marketing guru doing the. That's like, I launched 150 ads. Here's what I learned about whatever. And then they're selling you something dumb at the end of it. By the way, just for everyone, you're welcome for not tweeting like that.
Sarah
There you go.
Nate
You're welcome for not.
Sarah
We're doing great. We're not doing that.
Nate
No. But I love the other person thing. And, like, we've had some success from a tip you gave us a couple years ago. Talking about, like, not even that. Like, we're just, you know, the best gifts for the most rugged and dependable dads. We say, like, join the thousands of rugged and dependable dads that are getting these for Father's Day. And, like, putting it on like, hey, you're becoming a part of this community by telling other dad stories has seemed to go pretty well for us.
Sarah
Yes. Smart. Especially because it takes the attention away from you as a brand. And that sounds strange because you want to generate good attention for yourself, but the way you go grab that attention is important. This is very prevalent in personal brands. Right. So a lot of the business that comes in through the doors for Tether and for Sarah, a lot of it is just. I've been following you on Twitter for like a year or two years before they get into the ecosystem. But a good chunk of them are like, I. I heard you on this podcast and this person told me that, like, you should go work with Sarah because xyz. So it's actually easier and better to grow as a brand if you can get a little bit of outsourced pr. Free outsourced pr, just by talking about other people. Don't talk about you.
Nate
Super interesting. We definitely benefit from this too, with all of our collabs. Like, our Jack Daniels watch collection. LP doesn't tell our story. Tell the story of Jack Daniels, and, like, we get to focus on all these other things. And then it's like, hey, since we're the one telling you the story, and since we have this product on our website, buy it from us.
Sarah
Do you want to buy this?
Nate
Yeah, but, like, the hook is like, learn about how Jack Daniels has their own watches now.
Sarah
Oh, okay. Follow up question for you because I know you're a good copywriter and you've got, like, a ton of stuff in the works on the copywriting side with a bunch of other birds. How do you think about storytelling then? Because I have my own systems for creating good stories. Most of them I just took from, like, other people that are good at stories. Like, Pixar is really good at telling stories, but how do you think about frameworks for telling stories?
Nate
So lately I've actually been trying to write things from multiple points of view because, like, I think it's very. It's very, very different how you would write some. Something as, like, if I am writing it as the marketing guy from original grain, or if I'm writing it about a customer, or if a customer would be writing it about us. And like, some of our, you know, big unlocks with copy writing in the last year have been shifting the perspective to, like, hey, it's not that we make rugged and dependable we watches, it's that we make watches for rugged, independent guys.
Sarah
Yeah.
Nate
So I've been like, my, like, last step before I, like, am done with copy. I intentionally beg, okay, now chat. Write this from someone else's perspective. Write this from a customer's perspective. And, like, just kind of think as like a last kind of step. Like, hey, is there anything I'm missing by looking at it from only one point of view?
Sarah
Yeah. Oh, this is really smart too because you have a repeatable framework that you can go back and use again and again. I've noticed that people. This is really interesting lately actually. People are very, very adept at using ChatGPT or Claude or whatever to generate good brains. So they're injecting a whole bunch of like consumer research. They're using it to generate good headlines and ad scripts and those types of things. But what they're, they're doing at the back end, which I find really interesting, is then they're just choosing one like, they're just like, this one sounds good. And I'm like, how did you pick that one though? And they're like, I just picked the one that sounds best to me. And I'm like, what, you're doing all that work to train the GPT and then you're just pulling up? What, what? Why?
Nate
Yeah, I don't know about you. I'm still not copying and pasting anything from chat.
Sarah
No, never ever, ever.
Nate
Never More than like three words in a row are the same because I still think it needs the human touch. Or maybe I'm bad at prompting, I don't know. But yeah, no, I think that's something that people miss the boat on. And it's why I say like, I don't think chat writes copy for us. Chat is a good like brainstorming partner for me.
Sarah
Yes.
Nate
And then I write the copy.
Sarah
Yep, yep. I use the exact same way. Chat is just a second brain, it's not used to produce for me. So I'll go through and generate my first like high level concept for the headline or the ad or whatever it is. And then I'll work with chat for like a good hour, just bouncing back and forth, like inject more mystery into it, make it more curiosity driven. Be contrarian with this, like do something better. Chat. I'm not trying to like dig up.
Nate
Sometimes I've told it do it better just for the record and it kind of.
Sarah
Poor. Chat is like, what do you mean do it better? Trying my hardest. We're just abusive to this poor little guy. So chat though, I, ah, good reminder for everybody, this is a computer. It's a computer. It's making a mathematical computer. Yeah. Statistically significant guess based upon what you have told it in the back end for the last like six, eight months about who you are as a marketer. It's generating stuff based upon who Sarah is and what it thinks Sarah will like to see. Not necessarily what your customers need to hear, especially when it comes to telling stories. If you're generating full scripts in this thing, please don't take what it generates and just drop it into a lander or drop it into an email. You got to sit there and work with it and actually tell it what to emote. So I have a list of like, I think I have like 67 different emotional modifiers that I use that are things like include an open loop in here. Include make it more of a contrarian thing. Make use reverse psychology and shameless Plug. You can come in and get access to those in my community if you want.
Nate
I don't know how to plug this community.
Sarah
I got the community.
Nate
I plugged in 21 minutes into the podcast.
Sarah
Killing it now. Like a registered guru. Look at me. I have a huge okay. To my credit though, I have tried really hard not to launch a community for a long time because I. I don't know, I feel weird about like, come join my community.
Nate
No, but it does, like, democratize access to it and like, makes it more accessible. Not everyone can host a podcast with you and get so.
Sarah
Exactly. And I want to drop more like frameworks. So I actually have systems in here. One of the best ones that's like doing really well right now with the community group is the use. Do you know, I don't know if you know this, the valence intensity map. Have you ever ran your ad, the.
Nate
One of like how people feel about things and like how like far removed or connected they are to those things?
Sarah
Yes. Yeah, yeah. Very, very similar to that. So I have a system and prompts that you can run through chat. Take an ad that didn't work and it will run it through the valence intensity map. This is not something Sarah made up. This is an actual psychology model that's been used for literal decades. So run it through there and it'll tell you you're actually like low emotional and you're actually low intensity with the emotion too. You just need to switch it to high intensity with a higher emotion. And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, join the community and I'll teach you what it is.
Nate
But I'll be there.
Sarah
In general, this is like, good. It's a good way to generate story. Because one thing that I've noticed, story wise, especially since we can see, like on some platforms it's better if you talk about other people. Sometimes you're not using enough emotion. Sometimes you're too neutral because you don't want to rock the boat. You don't want anybody to, like, be upset. At you, which is just Sarah in general. But, yeah, we got to inject more emotion into the story, more emotion into chat, so that we can actually frame these, like, hey, I heard this story one time about this person in a way that gets people to respond.
Nate
Yeah, I love that. I want to run some ads through that.
Sarah
Okay. Yes. Maybe that'll be our next episode. We could run some ads through the valence intensity map.
Nate
Yeah.
Sarah
Spits out. All right, that'll be the next episode. There you go. I didn't know what to do for the next episode.
Nate
Perfect.
Sarah
I didn't have a plan. Is really what this whole podcast comes down to. Where can people find you?
Nate
I don't know. Me. I don't listen my podcast. I'm gonna quit it soon.
Sarah
Okay. No, you provide such good value, though. I listen to it.
Nate
No, listen.
Sarah
I know that, but does everybody else know that?
Nate
I'm just over it. It's growing like crazy, which is nice, but the. The amount of DMS I'm getting that are like, hey, I tried this thing once and it didn't work. Oh, that's really starting to bum me out, guys.
Sarah
I know mostly because there's nuance to it. Like, you may have tried it in a specific way that possibly we just needed one tweak over here. I have the same thing because it's difficult to trail this stuff, but. Yeah, I hear you. I hear.
Nate
Anyway, the last episode I put out. Well, the one I put out this morning was I roasted cold dmers finally.
Sarah
Yes, I saw that on Twitter.
Nate
But the one before that, I just called it. I'm upset. And I was like, you guys need to be consistent. Like, you guys got to stop trying different tax, different tactics and hacks once. And being like, it didn't work.
Sarah
It didn't work.
Nate
No, you tried it once. And like everything we talk about on this podcast where I'm like, oh, we unlocked a new headline. That was sick. It was the 37th iteration of it that crushed.
Sarah
Yeah. So, like, yes, I feel.
Nate
Put your head down and work before any of you listen to my podcast.
Sarah
How's that? Yeah, I got roasted this week as well, because I made the suggestion that direct response has taught us to be lazy, and a lot of people got real mad. I was like, coming from.
Nate
Coming from the marketers, by the way, who want to use AI to do everything and then run cost cap so they can have risk free advertising without having to do anything. Any real work. Yeah, you're the lazy one. Yeah.
Sarah
Okay, so. And to their. To their defense, I would say I'm hot. By the way, guys, Nate's ready. He's in it to win. It been a frustrating week though, because I was just like, hey, Direct Response is really teaching us bad habits. We need to get back to, like, more emotional and like psychology based marketing. And somebody wanted me to make the correction that current direct response practices are making us lazy. Which I agree. Originally, Direct Response was a little bit more Eugene Swartz style where we were actually connecting emotionally. But I digress. People. I'm sorry I say things slightly off sometimes. Humans, people, we're all human. Okay, follow me at 11JERSEY. Wherever you get your podcast, wherever you consume content. Yeah. And then come over. I have in the show notes is the link to the community. You guys want to learn how to apply all this psychology that we talk about to your brand to cut costs, boost sales? Please come over. Enjoy the community. It's pretty economical these days because I'm trying to make it easier to access this type of stuff. Hopefully Nate will be there. You should come in. I need to send you an invite is the problem.
Nate
Yeah, come on.
Sarah
I haven't said you one yet. Anyways, till next week. Like subscribe. Brain Driven Brands is part of the Learn and Laugh series on the Quickfire Podcast network and is presented by Tether Insights. For more information, go to tetherinsights IO.
Podcast Summary: Brain Driven Brands
Episode: The Tweet Test: What Really Drives Influencer Engagement
Release Date: May 15, 2025
Host: Sarah Levinger
Guest: Nate
In this engaging episode of Brain Driven Brands, host Sarah Levinger teams up with Nate to delve into a compelling psychology-based study examining what drives influencer engagement on Twitter. The episode combines insightful analysis with practical takeaways for e-commerce brands aiming to enhance their social media strategies.
Sarah introduces a recent study that analyzed 21,000 tweets from various influencers, including celebrity chefs, fashion bloggers, and personal trainers. The focus was on determining which types of tweet styles garnered the most shares—a critical metric for content virality.
Notable Quote:
"[...] tweets that told stories about other people were retweeted 33% more than average tweets about other people."
— Sarah [05:03]
Sarah presents a quiz to Nate, outlining three distinct tweet styles to determine which one achieves the highest share rate:
Notable Quote:
"Which one do you think gets shared the most? Angry outbursts, personal facts, or a story about somebody else?"
— Sarah [03:39]
Nate initially guesses that personal facts would perform best. However, Sarah reveals that stories about others are the most shared, outperforming personal facts by 15% and angry outbursts by 22%.
Notable Quotes:
"They found that tweets that told stories about other people were retweeted 33% more than average."
— Sarah [05:03]
"So emotional resonance comes down to context. How much information in the story can we include to make sure that you understand the core premise."
— Sarah [08:26]
Sarah explains that storytelling is deeply ingrained in human psychology, aiding memory and emotional connection, which in turn drives sharing behavior.
Interestingly, the study found that personal trainers are an exception to the general trend. Their occasional angry outbursts significantly boost engagement, a phenomenon not observed in other influencer categories like baristas or chefs.
Notable Quotes:
"There's one specific group that rage posts in particular do really freaking well... personal trainers."
— Sarah [10:00]
"Because they're very like, push harder. No excuses. Like, just do it."
— Sarah [11:03]
This suggests that certain professions have unique audience expectations that tolerate, or even encourage, expressions of anger as part of their motivational image.
Sarah and Nate discuss how brands can leverage these insights to craft more effective social media strategies. The key takeaway is to focus on storytelling that highlights others' experiences rather than solely promoting the brand.
Notable Quote:
"We need to stop saying, we launched a new product, we have a sale, we're going to go do this like, this is a big deal for us. Instead, we need to say one of our customers told us a story."
— Sarah [09:09]
Nate adds that sharing customer stories not only humanizes the brand but also fosters a community-driven perception that resonates more deeply with audiences.
The conversation shifts to practical applications, where Nate shares his approach to copywriting by adopting multiple perspectives. This technique ensures that the messaging aligns with different audience viewpoints, enhancing relatability and engagement.
Notable Quotes:
"I'm writing it as the marketing guy from Original Grain, or as a customer, or if a customer would be writing it about us."
— Nate [17:30]
"It's not that we make rugged and dependable watches, it's that we make watches for rugged, independent guys."
— Nate [18:09]
Sarah and Nate explore the use of AI tools like ChatGPT in crafting marketing copy. They emphasize the importance of the human touch, arguing that while AI can assist in brainstorming, the nuanced emotional and psychological elements of storytelling require human intervention.
Notable Quotes:
"Chat is just a second brain, it's not used to produce for me. So I'll go through and generate my first high-level concept and then work with chat."
— Nate [19:18]
"Chat is a computer making a statistically significant guess based on what you’ve told it."
— Sarah [19:20]
They caution against relying solely on AI-generated content, advocating for a collaborative approach that blends machine assistance with human creativity.
Sarah highlights the value of her community, where members can access frameworks like the Valence Intensity Map—a psychology tool used to evaluate the emotional impact of advertising content. She invites listeners to join the community to deepen their understanding and application of these concepts.
Notable Quotes:
"If you have no idea what I'm talking about, join the community and I'll teach you what it is."
— Sarah [22:00]
"I have a system and prompts that you can run through chat to evaluate your ads."
— Sarah [21:53]
In wrapping up, Sarah and Nate briefly discuss their podcasting experiences and the importance of consistency in applying marketing strategies. They encourage listeners to subscribe and join the community for continued learning and support.
Notable Quotes:
"Please come over. Enjoy the community. It's pretty economical these days because I'm trying to make it easier to access this type of stuff."
— Sarah [25:01]
"Till next week. Like subscribe. Brain Driven Brands is part of the Learn and Laugh series on the Quickfire Podcast network."
— Sarah [26:03]
Storytelling Over Self-Promotion: Narratives about others' experiences significantly enhance shareability and engagement on social media.
Context Matters: Tailor your content style to align with audience expectations specific to your industry or influencer category.
Human Touch in Copywriting: Use AI as a brainstorming tool rather than a content generator to maintain emotional resonance and authenticity.
Community Resources: Leverage structured frameworks and community support to refine and apply advanced marketing psychology techniques effectively.
This episode provides actionable insights for e-commerce brands and influencers aiming to optimize their social media presence through psychology-driven strategies. By focusing on storytelling and understanding audience psychology, brands can foster deeper connections and enhance engagement metrics.