Social Media Content Best Practices: Where Is Bed?
One of the most fundamental things I have to explain to clients is what the competition on social media looks like. As I tell them, your competition on social media is NOT the other big companies in your industry. On social media, the bar is much higher. On social media, your competition is “everything else on social media.”
For most people, that includes family and friends, coworkers, former coworkers, brands they have chosen to follow and advertisers with multi-million-dollar budgets. It also includes things that are just by and large more interesting than whatever it is that your company has to say. It’s not your fault. It’s just that most companies’ messaging is never going to be more interesting than pictures of cute puppies, videos of people’s favorite celebs, updates from their favorite bands or hysterical gags going wrong on TikTok.
Case in point: WHERE IS BED. You are so welcome.
On Friday, this video popped up on my Facebook feed. It is the definition of “sticky content.” Over the course of this past weekend, I have watched this video at least 20 times. It’s four minutes long. That’s 80 minutes of screen time, and I don’t regret a second of it. I still find it absolutely hysterical. I have shown it to my friends. I have shared it on my Facebook. I have bookmarked it, and I am now going back specifically to watch it. And, now I’m writing a whole blog post about it. Apparently I’m not the only one – 42M views and counting.
So first, if you’ve got a raging case of the Monday’s going, watch this video and brighten your day. It’s a bit from comedienne Lou Wall filmed at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. In it, Lou spells out the story of her interaction with a lady named Eileen who responds to her Facebook Marketplace listing for a free bed frame. All I can say is this is the wildest Marketplace story I’ve ever heard, and it’s well worth your four minutes. Apologize to people in your immediate vicinity before you start watching… you’ll be laughing loudly.
But I want to really talk about this specific bit of content and what makes it so darn sticky:
It’s funny! Oh so so funny. I’d never heard of Lou Wall before this, but I am a huge fan. She has amazing comedic timing.
It’s relatable. If you have ever tried to sell something on Facebook Marketplace, you have had some insane interactions. This one takes the cake, but it is so darn relatable to most people, which makes it even funnier.
It’s clever. I want to note that this particular video relies on a Powerpoint presentation filled with screenshots and a soundtrack that came right out of Canva templates. I could make this Powerpoint. So it’s worth noting that this did not rely on some overly produced expensive video. She tells the story with a Powerpoint and screenshots, and it’s the most engaging thing I’ve seen in a long time.
It’s fantastic storytelling. This has a beginning, middle and an end. It has a climax. Her telling of the story goes from “kind of normal” to “oh my gosh, bat@%#! crazy” and her telling of the story carries that momentum through.
So if you do content for a brand or a company, take note. If you’re Coca-Cola, your competition is not Pepsi. “Where is bed” is your competition. Because in the end, all you’re doing is competing against everything else in that person’s feed for their attention. In order for brands and their content to stand out, you must employ great storytelling. You must be entertaining. You must be relatable. If you can, be funny.
If you can’t, Where is Bed is going to win every single time.