Why your favourite brand is acting like a child on social media? The Internet is sick of professionalism and now shitposting is the language to express everything. I mean everything.

 

Internet confirms if you are good shitposter or not. As a reddit creator, shitposting trends have been my favourite, when done right. If you have like no-relationship with your audience shitposting could be hard way to gain and audience that buys from you. Because shitposting doesn’t justify why your price is valid or what makes you special. You still need other style of posts. But first, what is shitposting? And who is a shitposter?

 

Shitposting

 

No shit. This act has 100s of different definitions because shitposting is basically a social media act of posting that is low effort for X audience & then impactful/relevant to Y audience.

Shitposting is primarly famous on Reddit & Twitter. The twitter definition is way more political and reddit one is simple.

 

Reddit & TikTok

 

A Shitpost to a redditor is a piece of content with low effort & literally no value. But it might provoke a huge discussion why because internet loves to mess with shitposters. I am very active in r/entreprenuer sub-reddit, every month there exists a shitpost with no-value but it becomes the most upvoted post of the day. Why and how?

 

It becomes the conversation starter for that topic. Internet/ Reddit feels like they need to educate the audience and fix the issues in that post. To explain, there is a new version of shitposting on reddit & TikTok where the post isn’t a shitpost. But to provoke the audience like a shitpost, the creator makes a mistake. An example is below, Lala sadi always pronounces “hummus” word wrong and makes people engage more often with her video. Because Internet loves to correct others and be smart.

 

 

@lala_sadii 1 AM SNACK! I CAUGHT AT THE END BY MOM😭 #humus #foryou #fyp #viral #hungry #1am ♬ original sound - Lala

 

I think that sums up why shitposting work. Because the urge to correct someone is a human habits. And shitposts & the act of shitposting in a regular video provokes that discussion & brings more organic reach.

Twitter

Because Twitter is married with Politics and strategy, Shitposting on this platform is more oriented toward influencing consumers and getting your message across the table.

 

A majority of users even marketers think that shitposting is being you or building a funny persona. A shitposter shares whatever is on their mind and it is building transparency. Very likely that isn’t the case.

Coming to Political Twitter, Shitposting is very much controlled and influenced to build a message around the business. Through a low effort content publishing act, shitposting doesn’t fall into the idea of content creation or strategy. It is about having an intent and purpose to either cause a bad feeling in mind of a user or make them feel angery.

 

And that’s what occurs on twitter (X) where not only some brands and users shitpost. The CEO Elon Musk is very well know  for his regular shitposts about different political issues & tech world. A lot of people hate that and many love it. Why?

 

The reason is once you identify as a shitposter to an audience. You will have people that connect with style of content and the others that hate it or just ignore it. For Example, Wendy's is known for their funny twitter content. The SaaS platform on TikTok 'TL;DV' is known for their Roleplay videos.

 

But when by a mistake an Instagram user sees a Wendy's tweet. They might find that tweet strange because they have never seen the brand post content like that on Instagram. They will have a hard time grasping the humour. And that's okay.

 

Because shitposting is tailored toward a different audience that is either unknown to you or the audience believing heavily in the brand, creator or a user.

 

Again, This isn't a strategy. It is an intent focused publishing.

 

Confusing Humour for Shitposting

Everything above came from my experience, when I went to validate what I wrote. I found a bunch of TikTok videos referring that what brands like Wendy's, Duolingo & RyanAir do is called Shitposting. These brands aren't the examples of how shitposting works or what it means.

These brands are building humour based content around different personas of their business. Through funny content & Trends they seek to be more relatable. Humour is a huge part of marketing, research shows Ads with humour makes the audience remember your business for a much longer period.

 

On other hand, Shitposting isn't all humour, it is opinionative and could be harmful to your brand image. What these brands do is targeting emotions through research and consumer insights. Ask yourself, Would Billion dollar brands like these risk business for more viewership on social media? The obvious answer is no.

 

Even if you are a small brand or creator, do shitposting carefully, don't do it at the expense of losing your current audience. Right?

 

Last: Should you do it or not?

 

For Individuals, If you are being true to yourself by posting your opinions that deliver no value. Keep doing that, It doesn't matter what others think, you might find your tribe by being true to yourself. On other hand, when you care about your work life or use social media to craft an image hold back on shitposting or define the intent behind that shitpost.

 

For Businesses, Be Careful with this type of intent focused content. Always get an approval from the legal team. At the core of doing this content style do the market research. Did it work for somebody else? Yes, Analyse why it worked and what type of tactics were at the play while shitposting.

 

May be your other promotional content on social media helped to convert that free exposure into a buying exposure. Shitposting alone will leave you stranded. Focus on your overall social media strategy to succeed on social.

 

The Social Media Marketing World is becoming more exposure oriented. There is always someone getting more exposure or views than one. But the number of businesses getting their audience into their purchase funnel is decreasing because the quality bar is high. For that I recommend to be strategic and exposure oriented at the same time.