Matthew Kobach: Social Media Brands

My guest today is Matthew Kobach, the Director of Content Marketing at Fast and the former Manager of Digital and Social Media at the New York Stock Exchange. Matthew and I met on Twitter, where he shares actionable strategies for building brands on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and YouTube. He does it with a level of humor and honesty I’ve never seen in the social media industry.

This episode is a deep dive into Matt’s philosophy of social media. We started by talking about his all-time favorite television commercials and how they inform his social media strategy today. Then we spoke about how paid and organic social media should influence each other and why Cash App’s cash giveaways are such a smart social media strategy. Please enjoy my conversation with Matthew Kobach.

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Show Notes

1:39 - Who has surprised Matthew the most with the success of their social media strategy.

4:22 - Why social media is undervalued by the majority of marketing agencies.

8:32 - Why marketing to the "wrong" audience is still effective advertising.

13:08 - Matthew's favorite TV commercial of all time and why remembering the product may not be super important.

19:39 - How good advertising realizes things about yourself you haven't yet discovered.

24:03 - What social media post has been most successful for Matthew.

29:37 - How Matthew leveraged social media to land his current marketing job.

35:49 - Why focusing on organic long-term social media marketing instead of short-term paid became Matthew's niche.

39:07 - The convergence of organic and paid advertising and why Matthew thinks it's so effective.

45:10 - How having a long time horizon on your marketing strategy can help increase organic growth.

49:40 - Why giveaways have been and will always be successful.

54:49 - The greatest marketing lesson Matthew learned from his dad.

56:53 - Matthew's greatest takeaways from Peter Thiel's "From Zero To One."

59:09 - Why a fundamental change of social media seems completely unlikely without one particular element.

1:02:34 - How writing has become Matthew's "one weird trick" as a social media marketer.

1:06:20 - Why Matthew believes that at the opposite of a good idea is another good idea and why the inverse is also true.