š I try very hard to make it look like Iām not trying very hard
Plus: all hail the Godmother of The Dad, Ally Probst
I take everything too seriously. (Even comedy.)
I try very hard to make it look like Iām not trying very hard.
In 6th grade math class after every test people would ask what you got. There were a group of overachiever kids who would always ace tests. People would ask them what they got and scoff if it was a great score. I distinctly remember purposely getting answers wrong on the test so that I could very casually shrug and tell people I got a 96 instead of a 100. No big deal. Iām cool.
I am not bragging. That shit right there is APPALLING and disgusting. I tell my kids about that all the time as a cautionary tale. Caring that much about what people think is a recipe for failure and dissatisfaction I promise.
That month before we started The Dad we were creating content but not posting it. It gave us time to get process down. And do things like create meme templates in PowerPoint. FUN!
I remember one night chatting with Ally Probst and Josh Sneed as Ally made a meme.
Me: Can you nudge the watermark a little to the right so that it lines up with the left of the caption?
Ally: So move it to the right?
Me: Yeah
Me: Whoa not that much. If you hold Ctrl while hitting the arrow it moves smaller amounts
Ally: Like this?
Me: Yeah but now it looks a little lower than it should be. Can you move it up so itās equidistant from the top as it is from the left side?
Josh: And thatās when she quit and we never heard from her again
Ally: LOL
You want to know the number one tip for building digital media brand like The Dad that gets amazing engagement?
Partner with Ally Probst.
The entire The Dad team was (and is) amazing. But Iāve never worked with anyone who knows an audience like Ally. She has a natural feel for what will perform well and what type of tone and vibe will connect. It doesnāt matter AT ALL that The Dad is a ādad brandā and sheās (TECHNICALLY) not a dad. DOES NOT MATTER.
Ally is an idea machine. Iāve never seen someone able to crank out so much content. She could be tasked to write 10 jokes about sunscreen dance parties (something that actually happened for a branded campaign) and sheād write 30.
But her real superpower was separating herself from the content and seeing the brand how our audience saw it. She has the ability to create great content and then tweak it and edit it so that it will get engagement. Sheās done this countless times with viral memes, tweets, and videos. Even branded stuff (ads). All of this stuff is harder than it looks but Ally makes it look effortless.
Ally is the Godmother of The Dad. It wouldnāt be what it is without her, not even close.
This was the first meme we posted on The Dad on November 1, 2017.
You better believe I spent a bunch of time trying to decide how big that logo at the bottom should be. Should it be navy blue? Should the background be black or dark gray? Some texture?
In the end we decided to keep it simple and go black and white. Super chill.
So we had that template in PowerPoint, and weād drop a joke in the text box and save it as an image.
See? Powerpoint. Iām an unbearable psychopath.
Ally always told me stuff like, āNobody except us cares about that. Nobody else notices. They just want to laugh, press like, and go about their day.ā
Your audience doesnāt care about your plain text joke PowerPoint template.
They DEFINITELY donāt care about your logo.
Did you create your meme in PowerPoint? Canva? Photoshop? Nobody cares.
In fact, Ally taught me that if the audience can see any of that stuff, it actually makes it less appealing, less engaging. Because it looks like youāre trying too hard. It may even look like an ad at first glance, which is an engagement death sentence.
And so very early on, we threw out that entire template. Instead of
Type the joke in the template
Export as image
Schedule everywhere
We would
Type the joke in scheduling tool
Wait for it to go live as a tweet
Screenshot that tweet (on mobile cuz it looks more casual)
Crop to square
Send to ourselves
Schedule on other platforms
We were trying very hard to make it look like we werenāt trying very hard.
And it was lots better. Check out the numbers.
Of course some brandsā tone and vision may be aligned with polished, glossy, high production quality content, and if so, your optimized style will differ.
Itās fine to take things seriously. Itās important to try really hard at something that is important to you. But if youāre in the content business, you gotta step outside of yourself and see your stuff through the eyes of your audience. Want to have a great brand? Make stuff theyāll like.
Oh and itās helpful if you can partner with Ally Probst, the meme queen and Godmother of The Dad.
āWe were trying very hard to make it look like we werenāt trying very hard.ā THIS is brand building and itās both hilarious and exhausting - I feel so seen here as my sis and I do this process with the Reframeables podcast š