What I’m Reading, Watching & Listening To: January 31, 2021
What a week! Between the fascinating twists and turns of the market, to Andressen Horowitz launching a news outlet, Clubhouse’s raise of $100 million, I’m going to share my hot takes and the top stories of the week across tech, startups and marketing to help you learn something new. Ready to dive in?
News Articles
Reddit vs. Robinhood and Wall Street – What Went Down & The Marketing Implications For The Companies Involved
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard about this remarkable story.
The TL:DR? An individual on Reddit discovered that GameStop was a massively shorted stock and shared it on the thread Wallstreetbets back in September 2019. At first he was teased, but he kept posting monthly and eventually, more members of the group joined in. This started slowly at first and rapidly snowballed as financial influencers shared it outside of the thread – to the point that the stock started generating unbelieveable spikes. This only further propelled the phenomenon into mainstream media, casuing panic and maneuvering from the hedge funds at the heart of the GameStop stock short. This further exploded when all major trading platforms, led by Robinhood, blocked new purchases for a day and subsequently limited trading in the days after.
While the headlines position this as a rich vs. poor story, it’s much more nuanced than this. Here’s a great summary of the full story in @EndTwist’s Twitter thread, which dates back to September 2019: https://twitter.com/endtwist/status/1354547622133051393?s=19&fbclid=IwAR1oAyIRzL1VB1coaYXomucKLe7EoIqm0LgRWW_e6bPDCCVHsy7ieDjzu60
This move has prompted multiple lawsuits directed at Robinhood, plus an SEC investigation: ttps://www.marketwatch.com/story/sec-vows-to-punish-abusive-activity-amid-gamestop-robinhood-drama-11611932794
Has Robinhood killed its brand?
Robinhood’s entire brand was built around the concept of empowering the average individual with easier access to trading. This is where the “take from the rich and give to the poor” mentality comes in. By limiting the average individual’s ability to purchase stocks, it’s my opinion that Robinhood has permanently damaged its brand.
Here’s a few good articles on this to help you dig deeper into this topic:
Robinhood’s Poor Decision Will Haunt the Brand Forever: https://www.adweek.com/commerce/robinhoods-poor-decision-announcement-will-haunt-the-brand-forever/
Robinhood’s Upcoming Brand Crisis: https://dylansjanderson.medium.com/robinhoods-upcoming-brand-crisis-83f8a5be7b84
Tech and crypto funder Andreessen Horowitz wants to replace the media. Is that bad news?
The tech, startup and media communities have been hotly debating the news of Andreessen Horowitz’s plans to build a media empire. Andreesen Horowitz is a venture capital firm with $16.6B in assets under management which invests in late-stage technology companies, across the consumer, enterprise, bio/healthcare, crypto, and fintech spaces.
I purposely shared the Fortune article because it does a good job at sharing the pros and cons of this move. As someone who has built brand storytelling programs throughout my career, I understand why companies – and especially Venture Capital firms – would want to become media outlets. Why be reliant on someone else telling your story when you can own the narrative and ensure it’s covered in the way you want it to be? With social media and blogs, it’s never been easier for companies to do this. However, becoming a full-fledged news outlet takes to a much bigger level.
With brand journalism and storytelling, this strategy works if you can bring compelling stories to the table in a genuine way. Too often, compelling stories inside a company fall by the wayside amid a busy, sales-driven marketing calendar. If Andreesen Horowitz can show that they’re covering stories in a fair and balanced way, it will be successful.
The issue? Brand journalism initiatives fall flat when the reader sees an obvious agenda, spin or push for sales. Just because a company has social media channels, a blog or a full-fledged news outlet doesn’t automatically win them favor in the court of public opinion. This is why it’s so important that the news and content covered is done in a balanced way. Which, makes for a very delicate balance when you factor in the pressure every company – especially a VC firm – has to preserve brand and reputation management for themselves and the companies they invest in.
File this one under: one to watch.
The Latest Silicon Valley Unicorn, Clubhouse Raises $100 Million And Also Raises Attention To The Importance Of Audio-Based Social Networking
If you’re not on Clubhouse yet – you should be! And while you’re at it, feel free to connect with me there, I’m @JessicaGioglio.
The audio-based social media site has become Silicon Valley’s latest Unicorn with an impressive valuation and a $100 million raise. Brian’s piece for Forbes does a great job breaking down why Clubhouse is so hot right now – and how to make the most of the platform.
The Future of Social Audio: Startups, Roadmap, Business Models, and a Forecast
For those already familiar with Clubhouse and want to learn more about the social audio market, Jeremiah Owyang has put together a blog post filled with thought-provoking information and predictions. As Jeremiah’s post shares, we are at the beginning of an exciting new features to come, plus business models to consider. Check it out below!
How Atlanta’s Calendly turned a scheduling nightmare into a $3B startup
This article from TechCrunch is a long read – but a valuable one: https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/26/how-atlantas-calendly-turned-a-scheduling-nightmare-into-a-3b-startup/
I love to read the stories of founders and of companies. It’s easy to focus on mega valuations or revenue numbers, but I believe that great companies are the result of great leaders. As a result, it’s almost humorous that Calendly’s founder and CEO, Tope Awotona, doesn’t understand the media attention around his company. He has an inspiring story, coming from Lagos, Nigeria before relocating to the United States and graduating high school at age 15. There were some early successes and lessons learned from previous ventures, crazy stories of building Calendly during a violent uprising, and inspiring words about how his work ethic came from great parents. While I empathize with his push/pull of wanting to focus on his work and not do too many media interviews, I hope Tope can find the right balance, as we can all learn a lot from him!
YouTube has paid more than $30 billion to creators, artists, and others over the last three years
Boom! That’s an impressive number. Disclaimer: I love YouTube. Even though YouTube has been around for a long time, I’ve noticed a powerful trend. For a few years now, I have subscribed to YouTube creators and watched their videos and vlogs like I would a show on Netflix.
While the monetization opportunities on YouTube are impressive, the article highlights a growing concern for businesses and creators alike around channel strikes. If a channel gets three strikes within a 90-day period, a channel is terminated. In reading the guidelines, the channel strike penalities are quite strict and ruthless, meaning someone who has invested tons of time and effort and lose it all. It’s hugely important to familiarize yourself with the guidelines if you have a YouTube channel: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2802032?hl=en-GB
Photographer Behind Bernie Sanders Image Wishes He Never Captured A Meme
Last week, I wrote about the amazing story behind the Bernie Sanders memes. This week, a new development. Apparently the photographer behind the famous images wishes he never captured it. Why? He believes the photo is not a great composition!
Estée Lauder Sees Success in COVID Era with Livestreaming
If Chinese social media best practices are any indication, selling via livestreaming will become more popular on Western social media. One such example comes from Estée Lauder. The company is testing one to one and one to many style livestreaming events as a way to sell by adding value and providing additional information on its products with makeup artists and skincare experts: https://multichannelmerchant.com/ecommerce/estee-lauder-sees-success-in-covid-era-with-livestreaming/
Now It’s Your Turn!
What have you read, watched or listened to this week that had an impact on you? Share it in a comment — I would love to check it out!
Jessica Gioglio is the co-author of The Laws of Brand Storytelling and The Power of Visual Storytelling. Professionally, Jessica has led innovative marketing and public relations programs for Dunkin’ Donuts, TripAdvisor, Sprinklr, and more. Today, Jessica is the founder of With Savvy Media & Marketing, a strategic branding, storytelling, and content strategy consultancy.