💻 [OBO DIGEST] Bye Bye Social Media?

Lush leaves social (what does it mean?!), Gumroad rebrands, and the holiday shopping season is OFFICIALLY here…

Written by: Online Business Owner • November 29, 2021

We hope this message makes it through your inbox filled with Cyber Monday shopping deals…it is the biggest shopping weekend of the year, after all (we also hope your Stripe and PayPal accounts are raking in the dough).

Let’s get to this week’s news and happenings!

Featured

News + Happenings

Lush Says Goodbye to Social Media (Kinda?)

Cosmetic brand Lush celebrated Black Friday in the most surprising of ways for a multi-national retail and e-commerce company — by leaving Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat.

Leaving the ‘Gram, TikTok, and the like isn’t because the platforms aren’t working for marketing the brand (Lush’s CEO admits they may lose upwards of $13 million because of the change).

Instead, the company is concerned about mistrust around social platforms and the negative impacts of social media on the mental health of young women — their target demo. In the brand’s announcement on their website, they stated, “It’s time to stop scrolling and be somewhere else.”

“Social media was not designed to look after people’s health, but our products are,” explains Lush chief digital officer Jack Constantine. “It is counter-intuitive for us to use platforms that keep you hyper-tense, engaged and anxious.”

According to Vogue Business, the company’s marketing and communications strategy moving forward will be made up of “growing its YouTube presence, using Twitter for customer care, producing email newsletters for campaigns and tapping Pinterest for inspirational content. Offline, [Lush] will invest in more physical events, community activations and maybe even old-fashioned postal catalogues.”

*record scratch* Now wait a minute...we thought they were done with social media?!

It seems that Lush is being selective about what it considers social media and sees a real difference between using Twitter for customer service or YouTube for content distribution versus playing the algorithm and engagement game on platforms like Instagram and TikTok.

Why this matters for online business

We think the most powerful message from Lush’s social media changes has to do with their values and mission more so than their marketing strategy. This is the perfect example of a massive brand taking financial risk to make a business change that’s in better alignment with what matters most to them.

And let’s be real...Lush also benefits from decades of business, a seriously loyal fan base, a massive customer database, and nearly 1,000 brick & mortar shops around the globe. Before now they also spent $0 on social ads and attribute only 0.5% of their sales to direct social media purchases. This change won’t have too much of a negative impact on their overall business (and all of the press they’re getting after announcing their social media departure is sure to help spur sales).

Online Business E-Commerce Site ‘Gumroad’ Launches Rebrand

Gumroad, one of the internet’s first platforms for easily selling digital products like courses, PDFs, music, and software launched a complete rebrand over the weekend.

The San Francisco-based startup, celebrating 10 years in 2021, revealed the new brand and messaging on Black Friday.

Gumroad CEO Sahil Lavinia wrote on the company’s blog about the rebrand, “we see Gumroad taking a new role as…a guide to help you take your first step in search of a more sustainable work/life. Because we believe everyone should be free to create the life they want to live, whatever their definition of success.”

In March of this year the company allowed anyone to participate in a first-of-its-kind crowdfunded equity round — helping them raise $5 million in just 12 hours from over 7,000 investors.

Since then, Gumroad updated their pricing model — eliminating monthly minimum fees and moving to a sales-based tiered percentage pricing model. Last month, Lavignia published his first book, “The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More With Less.”

With the rebrand, Lavignia writes, “Everything from our logo and colors to website and product platform have evolved to better communicate our new point of view. We’re not just a tech platform, we’re promoting a lifestyle.”

Why this matters for online business

It’s exciting to see a company that serves creators take on the same mentality of creators through their branding and messaging -- the focus on the lifestyle piece is key here as Gumroad heads into their next 10 years of business and supporting the creator and online business economy.

2022 Social Media Marketing Trends are Here!

It’s every marketer’s favorite time of year -- TRENDS SEASON!

Social Media Examiner has gathered the trends and predictions from over 20 marketing pros all in one place in their latest “Social Media Marketing Trends for 2022” blog post.

A few highlights of the 2022 trends forecast include: Reels, Reels, Reels; doubling down on organic video; longform content taking market share from the short form expiring content we’ve all grown to love; niche groups and communities are more important than ever; TIKTOK!; Twitter Spaces; content and audio trend times are shortening; paid social strategies require evolution; and so much more!

Social Media News + Updates

📺 YouTube details plans to bring live-stream shopping to all users.

🐦 Twitter is working on a double tap to like a tweet (a la Instagram)

🐦 Twitter treks into the live-stream shopping game for the holiday season.

In Other News

👋 Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey is leaving Twitter (again). Current CTO Parag Agrawal to take over.

🎁 Adobe predicts a 10% YoY increase in shopping this holiday season.

🤖 Collins dictionary names ‘NFT’ the word of the year (we still don’t fully get what it means…)

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