I’ve been creating content since the start of covid, podcasts, memes, LinkedIn, newsletters, you name it, I’ve had my hand at creating it.
And it is one of the highest ROI moves I’ve made personally and professionally. HANDS DOWN. Life changing.
However (big word lol) that doesn’t mean it doesn’t come with some downsides.
If you’re putting yourself out there, sharing your perspective on your industry, you’re bound to have some people disagree with you (and that’s a GOOD THING).
But sometimes those disagreements turn into hate, and the hate turns into a pack of HATERS, and I’d be lying to you if I said stuff like that NEVER got to me.
When I first started creating content the haters, hateful words, ugh it got to me.
But after being in it for 4 years I’ve developed a kevlar vest for the haters, and guess what? YOU CAN TOO.
So here are my must-knows if you want to be able to handle the hate (as a brand and personally) and THRIVE. 👇
It all starts with perspective.
Your brand wants those raving fans right? The ones that show up to ALL of your events, open ALL of your emails, and are the FIRST to try your new product release.
To have that level of connection with a consumer, you need haters too.
Yeah I said it, if you want raving fans you need raving haters.
Apple, Barstool Sports, Taylor Swift, they all have massive groups of raving fans, and MASSIVE groups of just as adamant haters.
The hate is good. Embrace your brand’s common enemy. Even if consumers don’t have much in common amongst themselves, if there is a common enemy, psychology shows THAT ALONE is enough to bond large groups of people together.
ALSO your common enemy doesn’t even have to be a person. Nike leans into this common enemy of laziness, no drive, and inaction in EVERY campaign they run.
They’ve built this aura of inaction into something that their cult-like following rallies against, when you’re buying Nike products you’re simultaneously giving the 🖕to inaction. Just what they want.
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Here are my 3 fav Nike x Paris Olympic ads that show this use of a common enemy perfectly. 👇
1️⃣. Nike x Victor Wembanyama, super gritty ad for the French basketball star who is looking to spoil the dreams of the other competing nations. Common enemy: the 11 other countries he’s looking to beat.
2️⃣. Qinwen Zheng x Nike, Qinwen is leaving Paris with the exact souvenir she set out to grab. 🥇 Common enemy: silver & bronze medal.
3️⃣. Sha’Carri Richardson x Nike, this is part of a series of “Winning isn’t for everyone” commercials that Nike launched for the Olympics. Watch the commercial here. Common enemy: everyone afraid of their own greatness.
Okay but BACK TO THE HATERS.
Salesforce did it too in order to get their business off the ground, they didn’t pinpoint a person or feeling, but a PRODUCT (old-school software) that they were looking to steal market share from.
There are so many ways to leverage the hate and turn it into something great.
I get DMs from people full of hate, emails criticizing our ethos as a brand at TMM, and people unsubscribe from our email AND TELL ME they’re going to lol.
But a mindset you need to have in Marketing, is you WILL NOT impress everyone. If you’re trying to impress everybody then you’re not going to impress the people who ACTUALLY MATTER.
**I’ve even heard a really interesting take on socials that I seriously think has merit, and it’s the idea that if you identify the group of people who you know will NEVER buy your product in the first place, go and make them enemy number one for your brand.
Obviously don’t be disrespectful, but intentionally pin them as your common enemy with the goal of bringing your target audience together against them. I mean, they weren’t going to buy from you in the first place so might as well leverage them for Marketing purposes.**
Also an unsubscribe from a newsletter is NOT the worst thing, it just shows you that they’re alive. It’s better to know someone doesn’t like what you’re doing and LETS YOU KNOW versus them being unengaged entirely.
So I’m okay with people unsubscribing, it gets us closer to who our raving fans are.
The goal of email or building an audience is to build it up full of people who respect you, believe in what you think, and cultivate those engaged long term LTV readers, followers, subscribers, whatever you want to call them.
