6 Insights You Need To Know About Streaming Brands On Social Media
TikTok has become the social network generating the most engagement for streaming brands in 2021. Streaming services may hold viewership numbers as a closely guarded secret, but when it comes to understanding performance on social media, ListenFirst has an objective view of which streaming brands are succeeding and why. From our internal study of Apple […]
Disney Adults: The Blueprint for Lifestyle Fandom
They are easy to mock because they wear the fandom out loud. They are harder to dismiss once you realize they represent exactly what most entertainment brands are trying to build. Disney Adults have become one of the internet’s most reliable punchlines. They are framed as overly emotional, aggressively cheerful, suspiciously well-accessorized adults who visit […]
Meghan Trainor: The Social Risk of a Rebrand That Doesn’t Feel Owned
Meghan Trainor’s new album & era became a case study in what happens when audiences start treating pop rollouts like brand audits. Meghan Trainor may have canceled The Get In Girl Tour for personal reasons. But on social media, the cancellation was quickly absorbed into a more embarrassing narrative: another pop artist overestimated demand, booked […]
#GRWM
#GRWM: Everyone Knows the Steps. No One Knows the Rules. How #GRWM turned skincare into a performance system, and what that means for every brand selling to anyone under 25. The story about kids and multi-step skincare routines is easy to flatten into parental panic: another moral spiral about tweens in Sephora, another headline about […]
Squishy & Swipe
The unboxing economy turned cheap squishy toys into a TikTok-native collectible category. And it has almost nothing to do with the toys themselves. I am a mom, but at two and a half, my daughter hasn’t figured out how to chase TikTok trends yet. I knew squishy toys were popular in the vague way you […]
The Hidden System Behind What “Works” in Social
Why performance keeps getting copied and failing anyway Most marketing strategy today is built on observation. A brand sees something perform. High engagement, strong sentiment, cultural traction. Then it gets translated into a playbook. Move faster. Be more human. Participate in culture. Show personality. The issue is not that these observations are wrong. The issue […]
Emotional Risk Economies: Escape
This article is Part 4 of 4 in our Emotional Risk Economies series, a framework that explores how different categories operate under distinct emotional contracts on social media. Each installment examines the structural pressures, audience psychology, and platform incentives shaping brand risk in real time. Emotional Risk Economies Universe: Part 1: Trust Economy || Part […]