Best of Future Social, 2024 Edition

I’ve spent the last week between NyQuil-induced shivering naps while binging Squid Game 2. Easily the worst illness I’ve had since COVID—I’m only just now able to look at my computer screen again. Do not recommend.

As always, let’s finish things off with a round-up of my favorite FS issues from 2024. Below you’ll find 17 essays divvied between brand case studies, social strategic thinking, and industry thoughts.

On a personal note, this has been a hell of a year for this business. Future Social ends 2024 with 71,101 subscribers, a 36.2% open rate, and a 4.48% click through rate—numbers I’m quite proud of, and will only grow next year when I really step on the gas.

If you’d like to sponsor or partner with my newsletter, gimme a shout—you can reply directly to this email.

Can’t thank you enough for reading, and can’t wait to see you in the new year.

Social Media Case Studies

• The Pixar Social Media Strategy. Something interesting here—the brand has different voice & tone for different social networks, which you don’t see often.

• How Netflix used Instagram’s new 20-slide carousel. I’ll bet you’ve never seen this many hot dogs in your whole life.

• How Elijah’s Xtreme Hot Sauce got 10 million TikTok views. This one’s a great example of interplay between brands and creators to make a story.

• How Social Media saved Linkin Park. The band’s livestream-to-content-archive reveal for their new singer was brilliantly executed, and I heard from the band’s management that Mike Shinoda actually read the piece, which made my year.

• How ‘real-time influencer marketing’ helped The UPS Store get millions of views. Gotta strike while the TikTok couples are hot!

• Sesame Street’s Twitter Strategy. We should all be authentically Elmo.

• How The Jet Business uses TikTok “Sales Skits” to generate millions of views. Who says you can’t sell luxury on short-form content?

Social Media Strategy

• A full social strategy in 4 easy steps. Playbooks don’t need to be long.

• Why meme marketing is illegal for brands. I know it’s easy content creation, but a lottt of brands are starting to get sued.

• MrBeast’s leaked guide to making great content. Brands could learn so much from creators, and Beast’s the best of them.

• Why every brand should be on YouTube Shorts. One major update made the platform incredibly easy to get your brand’s content on the second-largest search engine.

• Just post the bad content requests. Stop giving yourself a headache.

Social Media Industry & Careers

• My 2025 predictions for social media, creators, and content. Yes, I talk about the TikTok ban and Twitter’s downfall, but hit harder on platform & industry thinking.

• How I hit a $200,000 social media salary, and how you can, too. I really believe we can all earn a great living through content.

• I’m worried Social Media Marketers are hurting their careers. We gotta care about the marketing as much as the social media.

• Why ever marketer should post on LinkedIn. Market yourself if you want to advance your career.

Last week for 50% off my personal branding course!

Building my personal brand changed my life. I scored jobs and clients worth millions just from my social media presence, and I really believe I can help you do the same.

Introducing The Personal Social Strategy, my first course! It includes:

• 40+ lessons & exercises, covering personal brand strategy, how to create content true to you, building your unique value proposition, and a lot more

• Monthly Group AMAs with Jack, answering every question you have

• The Deep Dive Self-Interview exercise, essential for making truly unique content that builds real rapport

• The Daily Approach Exercise: a guide to turning your daily life into easy, same-day content

• The Year-Long Brainstorm: an exercise to help you plan a year of content in advance

• How to pick a platform: Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, newsletter, podcast?!

• And a whole bunch more!

This is the last week to join the first 50 students with that 50% off discount—it’s automatically activated right here via this link. Hope we get to talk about building your personal brand!