Brand therapy with bite.
We’re back to answer your real-life branding questions, with zero fluff and maximum spice. Your no-filter brand advice column. Where we dismantle the shoulds, the hype, and the things you’ve been too afraid to ask out loud. Spill your blind spots in the comments below and we might just answer yours next time.
Q1: How do I get people to talk about my brand without paying them? — Olivia C. (Fashion Label, Vancouver, Canada)
Dear Olivia,
Let’s start with a truth that feels uncomfortable to say out loud: people don’t owe your brand their attention. Or their excitement. Or their precious word-of-mouth energy.
We live in a time where almost every interaction with a brand feels transactional; either you’re buying, or you’re being sold to. Which means the rare moments we do share something unprompted are either because:
- It made us look clever
- It made us feel something
- It made us part of something bigger than ourselves
Notice how all three of those are about the person, not the brand.
If you want people to talk about you without paying them, you have to create moments that deliver social currency. Something they can gift to their own circle — a thought, a laugh, an experience — that makes them look interesting.
And here’s where most brands get it wrong: they create content about themselves. Campaigns that feel like corporate press releases with a coat of Instagram gloss. Unfortunately, that’s not conversation fuel, it’s just advertising in slightly cooler clothes.
Instead, think about what your customers actually do when they’re excited: they send a friend a link at 11:42pm. They screenshot. They drop a “you HAVE to see this” in a group chat. They tell a story about the time they stumbled across something unexpected.
You can manufacture that, but not with a brief that starts “We want people to share this.” You have to start with “What would I send to a friend if I wanted to blow their mind?” Then make that. And make it true enough that you’d still be proud of it in a year.
If you’re stuck, reverse-engineer the share factor. Scroll through your own camera roll, DMs, and saved posts: what made you hit “send” instead of just “like”? Was it the hook in the first three seconds, the audacity of the claim, the beauty of the execution, or the way it said something you’ve been thinking but hadn’t put into words yet? That’s your R&D lab. Build a little swipe file of things you’d share without being asked, and map out why they work. Patterns will start to appear: tension, novelty, beauty, usefulness. Then your job is to take one of those levers and pull it in your own brand’s language.
The unglamorous part? Earning word-of-mouth without paying for it is slow. But the upside is that when it works, it’s stickier than any paid reach you could buy.
Love, P.O.
Q2. Should I be on TikTok or just admit I’m not built for it? — Marcus H. (Coffee roastery, London, UK)
Continue reading on our Substack, Public Opinion.
