I usually highlight great content from brands, but today I’m going to talk about what to avoid.

Today’s unlucky subject is LIFEWTR (which, admittedly, is successful on its own and doesn’t need much of a social presence anyway).

You can scroll through their account here:

LIFEWTR

Which LIFE is right for you?

♬ Forest, trees, nature, piano, cute pops(983271) - Gloveity

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They’re a good example of how large brands get social (and short form) wrong. Here are a few patterns and issues I see:

Inconsistent Posting
​Their last 10 videos average one post a month, which tells me that they treat social as a box to check and that there's no one dedicated to the channel or strategy.

Platforms want to see you investing in them, both as a consumer and creator, but why?

As a consumer: I tell new and emerging accounts that they should use the app (whether Tiktok, IG, or Youtube) as though they’re the brand. If they’re in the skincare space? Follow dermatologists, skincare hashtags — engage with that content on the feed. You need to “train” the algorithm to get an understanding of who “you” as a brand account are, and what type of audience you want to reach. This primes the algo to have a higher likelihood of getting your content to the right people.
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​As a creator: platforms reward consistency and effort. They want signals that you, as an account, are ‘invested’ in creating for the platform, because content is the lifeblood of their business. The likelihood that you’ll find a viral hit posting 1x a month is unlikely, unless the content is incredible.
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To do both of the above, you need a dedicated person or team to social.

Inconsistent Style
​In ten videos you'll see ten different formats:

- Skits + Trends
- UGC from different creators
- Day-in-the-life
- Highly branded, looping 3D videos.
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Especially for newer and emerging accounts, a specific ‘style’ or series is key as the algorithms want to categorize and classify your account. Are you unhinged like Duolingo, skit-based like brooklyn coffee shop, Vlog/story telling like Timm Chiusano, Greenscreen like yours truly?

When you create content that spans a wide variety of creators, styles and non-native content, your likelihood of finding success approaches zero.

Non-native content
​What I see most often from larger brands, is that their content is not native to the platform.

You wouldn’t run an in-store retail promo on TV, so why are you running a TV ad on IG?

A video like this tells me that whoever created it and posted it has never been on Tiktok.

If you want to create compelling content for social, you must be an engaged user of those platforms. Otherwise any strategy, creative direction, filming and editing is going to fall flat.
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Putting paid behind bad videos
​This video from LIFEWTR has 21m views, this one 10m views, and this one 5m views.

Without paid, each one of these may have hit….1k views?

The issue with these videos is twofold. It’s not-native to the platform, and second, it’s what I call selfish content. It looks nice in a deck or presented to a CMO, but as a viewer, why would you ever care to watch this?

It’s neither entertaining nor informative. If you put paid $$$ behind a video, make sure it’s one that organically performed well, first.

The lesson...

Why does this happen? Usually a combo of low effort, no channel ownership, and ego-driven content made to impress internal teams, not actual viewers.
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The lesson for brands: Pick a style. Stick to it. Post consistently. Make content people want to watch. It might feel off-brand, but that’s fine as long as it’s on-platform.
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That's all this week. As always, let me know what you liked, didn't like or if you have a video/topic you want to see covered in the future.

Ashwinn