Modern friendship is just sending each other Instagrams with an “it u” or “@ me next time.” Hysterically, there’s now a card game based on that DM behavior that every marketer’s gonna love. With Tag Someone Who, you flip a meme card, then every player votes who around the table best fits that meme. I’ve played it—it’s pretty damn funny and sometimes just pretty damning.

Besides the lulz, you’re gonna wanna know their marketing, because, uh, this is their Instagram after just two months.

Even bigger? 54,000 of those followers came in month 1.

Oh, and it was all organic content and influencers (including me). Zero paid ads.

Let’s dive into Tag Someone Who’s memeful social marketing strategy, including:

• why they’re building community first, selling later

• a tactical Instagram Collab influencer play

• reaching out to influencers before other brands get in

If you build it, they will come

You gotta love the mission behind Hunch Studios: “fun is the best way to help people be present.” The NYC-based game-makers behind the viral hit INCOHEARANT keep that thinking in mind at all times, from product development to market fit to social media strategy. The two-man team has a ball, but take their integration thinking quite seriously.

When the company launched @TagSomeoneWho on Instagram to support the new game, the goal wasn’t immediate sales—it was to continue the tag someone who thinking through social media.

And that’s why they earned 58.4 million views on this one post.

More simply—they’re building an “@ me” meme account and trust that if you love their Instagram memes, you’ll eventually buy the game about memes.

“So far, we've done very little explicit game promo in feed,” said Peter Levin, co-founder of Hunch Studios. “The thinking: too sales-y too early = less engagement = less appearing in feeds.”

This should be music to the ears of social media managers who wanna drive more engaging before schlepping product.

Gaining audience via Instagram Collabs

When we think of influencer marketing, it’s usually product ties into said influencer’s content. While Tag Someone Who certainly takes that approach, they also use Instagram’s Collab feature to partner with pages making similar content to grow their account. From Levin:

Another intersting tactic used here: “detaching” the collabs at the end of the partnerships. As the content collab reaches its peak, @TagSomeoneWho will end the collab, making the content only on their page so potential followers won’t have confusion which page to follow. Don’t worry—it’s all above board and part of the deals.

Getting in early with influencers

When Tag Someone Who wants to show off the game with more traditional influencer marketing, they can always secure deals with lifestyle creators because the game itself makes for great content.

Take Clara Garner, a BYU athlete with 400,000+ TikTok followers. Hunch Studios reached out to her after one of her videos went viral, only to find out she hadn’t made her first brand deal just yet. The game got in with a creator who was only just starting to monetize, becoming Tag Someone Who’s most cost-effective influencer pay in terms of clicks to purchase page.

@care.bearrrrrr

we 🫶🏼 playing t@g someone who😸#fyp

A product built for social fun

We’ve always gotta recognize when a product’s especially built for social, which Tag Someone Who certainly is.

“Our criteria for games: they’ve got to sell themselves,” said Hunch’s co-founder Javier Quinonez. “We don’t have the luxury of being able to spend in a massive way—there just isn’t enough margin to go around. That’s why we productized the relatability of your friends and a social media behavior.”

Can confirm. Have been @-ed. It me.

But seriously. You should get the card game.

Pete, co-creator of Tag Someone Who, is an actual friend of mine—we met on Twitter! He had a big ol’ grin on his face when he called to tell me about his new game. “You’re gonna love this one.”

I gave the game a test run and cried laughing. Partnering for this issue made way too much sense—I’m so confident marketers & social media managers will love this game that I’m bringing it to Future Social IRL events in 2024 (whoops, spoiling that one a little early).

Grab the game right over here—best $20 you’ll spend this December.