Red is a former journalist turned marketer with 15+ years of experience both on the agency side working with entrepreneurs to public companies, as well as in-house working with brands on marketing strategy and hands-on content creation that supercharges brands, builds community, and drives customer acquisition.
It’s not the weather or the calendar that tells you it’s spring in New England, instead it’s when more nights than not, right around 7 pm, the Red Sox are taking the field. That consistency has me thinking about the recent World Baseball Classic and how one Czech pitcher reminded everyone that while viral moments are amazing stories, it’s the constant reps and consistency over time that build unforgettable names, careers, and brands.
Shohei Ohtani is the best baseball player in the world, a perennial MVP *and* Cy Young candidate that may eventually go down as the greatest player of all time. HOWEVER, back at the 2023 World Baseball Classic, Ohtani struck out while facing Ondrěj Satoria. The guy on the mound wasn’t a flamethrower hitting triple digits on the gun or even a wily MLB veteran, no he was a Czech pitcher whose day job was working as an electrician.
Ondřej Satoria works as an electrician for his day job. Today he struck out Shohei Ohtani in a WBC game without ever throwing a pitch above 79 MPH
It’s an all-time feel good story for the pitcher and a tale his family will tell for GENERATIONS, but my point is that even arguably the greatest player of all time can be bested in a one-off situation. Especially in tournaments like this where players are unfamiliar with each other, whether that’s because they’re young minor leaguers or in this case are blue collar badasses from the other side of the globe.
Let Shohei see this pitcher a few times and he probably bats a cool .900 against him.
That is the importance of reps.
If you look at this strikeout in a vacuum, like say a random viral video, you could convince yourself this pitcher is the next best thing because he struck out Ohtani. When in reality, an objective viewer knows that with consistency and reps, water is going to find its level and Shohei Ohtani is going to remind everyone who the F he is while taking this guy to the moon.
Something I say to C-suite execs all the time is, yes we could remix a random viral cliff jumping video and rack up views, but what’s the point?
It’s empty calories.
If you make a habit of lifting and shifting content that has nothing to do with your business just to chase views, then you’ve turned your brand into a meme page. Don’t chase trends, focus on the value your brand provides, foster that emotional connection with the audience, and THEN use your team’s social expertise, analyze the data under the hood, and pull all the various levers in an attempt to juice the algorithm. Not before.
Get your reps in.
Now I’m not a total miser because I am a lifelong baseball fan so when Satoria was back on the mound for the Czech in the 2026 WBC and spun 4.2 scoreless innings against Team Japan, it was impossible not to tip my cap.
All of Japan seemed to agree.
Ondřej Satoria is a Czech electrician whose fastball barely tops 80 MPH.
Baseball took him from fields in Czechia to striking out Shohei Ohtani and becoming a celebrity in Japan.
This racer I spoke with DISLOCATED HER HIP and still finished the race, then lost nearly 100 lbs, came back the next season to run the same exact course in the mountains, and then earned a spot on the podium.
I think I am all set on complaining about anything for a while 😂
The incredible stories you hear by just striking up a conversation with a stranger in the parking lot.
I was changing shoes after running my own race and noticed this guy’s ripped up wheel cover and I had to ask him about it.
Turns out this guy’s been running Spartan races forever, that day was his 50th race, and the wheel cover was the only thing that survived after a drunk driver completely totaled his old Jeep 👀
When on-site for an event, the days are often long in between planning content, scouting locations, attempting to stay on the Run of Show schedule, capturing every key moment from the speed and brutal efficiency of the elite pro athletes to the struggles and joy of first timers, dealing with delays and reschedules, missing a shot, cutting up footage, editing in real-time, and keeping the buzz going the whole time on social.
But, take a step back from all that to remain present, really watch everything happening, and sometimes you stumble onto the most inspirational thing you’ll see all year.
It was truly incredible to see this young athlete *crushing* the Fenway Spartan Stadion course with nothing but a smile on his face.
Shoutout to Mark Zuckerberg and the Ray-BanMeta shades for helping me shoot some killer POV videos at Fenway Park while squeezing in a Spartan race of my own (in between running around capturing content all weekend).
To really understand your brand and your product it’s key to not only talk the talk, but walk the walk. Experience what your customers experience to really get a sense of the brand and its perception. With that in mind I’ve run a few Spartan races, never having done any before joining the team. As a moderately active guy, avid runner, lifting weights a few times a week, I had a decent base of athleticism going into my first race.
Right?
Anddd I completely underestimated how hard a basic skill like climbing a rope or scaling a wall can become after several miles of running, crawling, pushing, pulling, and carrying.
Persistence and grit become that much more important. Without one or the other you’re going to have a rough day, but without either you’re cooked.
The athlete shown slamming into the Stairway to Sparta obstacle in this video later told us this was her first Spartan Race and sheepishly mentioned she had no idea how to do some of the obstacles so she was banking on persistence and grit. Now she could have easily admitted defeat, accepted the penalty loop, and been on her way. Probably would have been quicker too.
Sometimes you just want to prove it to yourself that you can conquer any obstacle life throws in front of you, on or off the course.
That’s exactly what this athlete did as she crashed into the wall time after time before securing the grips and hoisting herself up and over the towering A-frame wall.
Persistence. And. Grit.
Moral victory?
Nope.
She continued to bomb through the course, applying equal parts persistence and grit, and ended up climbing the podium to take 1st place in her Age Group along with some well deserved hardware.
🏈 Growing up watching the NFL, every time a Broncos game was on TV you’d see visiting players on the sidelines sucking on oxygen masks in between plays, clearly not used to the altitude of Denver (5,280 ft). I remember always thinking, “Dude it cannot be that bad!”
🏆 Well, now picture Mammoth Lakes in California, double that altitude (10,000+ ft), with athletes racing up and down a mountain, and you’ve got the first ever Spartan Super World Championship.
🏔️ Earlier this month I was fortunate enough to be covering this inaugural event and I was *shocked* at how quickly I gassed out. Roaming around at 10,000 ft with zero time spent acclimating had me sucking air just running between obstacles to capture content.
🥇 Kudos to the truly world class athletes that bombed through a 10K course that was 30 degrees at the start line, featured 20 obstacles of carries, climbs, and brutal barbed wire crawls (not including the penalty burpees), up and down a mountain, while running flat out the whole time.
Insane.
Thinking back to those NFL players with the oxygen masks…can I get in on that?
🏆 Recently I had the opportunity to cover the 2025 Pan American Championship in Seattle and I am always in awe of the relentless pace of these elite Spartan athletes. Despite taking on the Beast (13+ miles & 30 obstacles), with stretches up mountains, through rivers, and gnarly terrain the entire way, the top athletes never slowed down or shifted into a lower gear.
⏰ Although it’s a 13+ mile race, there’s no time for setting up the perfect shot or getting a second take. The athletes are flying through the course as fast as possible with real prize money on the line. So it takes extensive pre-race planning, understanding what obstacles are where on the course, how you’ll get around the property, while still getting up close to capture the emotions and struggles experienced during a grueling race.
🐊 Thanks to the build team and course markers, I was able to hitch a ride and capture a lot of footage on the back of a Gator bombing around the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest.
🐟 The coolest part of the weekend though? Getting ahead of the leaders and setting up on the bank of the Snohomish River right before the action arrived, taking a moment to look around and appreciate the silence with the only noise coming from the salmon and trout leaping out of the water.
Years ago I once asked a Facebook rep whether a recently released ad format was successful because it truly was what users were engaging with the most *or* if it were simply because Facebook was pushing the new format and serving it to users the most?
A true Chicken or the Egg conundrum.
The Facebook rep was unsurprisingly unwilling to commit to a direct answer. It’s not uncommon for tech platforms to implement new features and then chase the desired behavior after the fact. As marketers and business owners we simply need to acknowledge the tools available to us and understand how to maximize their effectiveness.
With that being said the latest example of the Chicken or Egg conundrum is the explosion of TikTok and Reels over the past couple of years. Reels are Meta’s answer to TikTok, similar to how it created Stories as a response to Snapchat. I can say from personal experience the introduction of Stories on Instagram drastically reduced my time spent on Snapchat, effectively weaning me off of Snapchat’s ephemeral content. Meta has attempted to do the same with Reels to combat rising competitor TikTok with mixed results as TikTok continues to dominate the rankings of app downloads, time spent on app, and user engagement metrics. So the question as marketers and business owners: Is this going to stick? Do I need to be making TikToks? What about Reels?
Yes.
Okay, the answer is obviously more complex than that depending on your brand, your audience, your goals, your resources etc. But, brands need to be paying attention to what consumers are doing and where they’re spending their time. More and more of that time is being spent on platforms like TikTok. Video content still reigns supreme over static social posts, with vertical, shorter, engaging video content currently presiding at the top.
Not sure where to begin? My team can help your business jump right into the deep end, but if you want to dip your toes in first there are a few ways to do just that. To skip spending the hours necessary to understand top performing trends, content styles, formats etc. below are a few tips on how your business can get started on TikTok right now.
Create for sound on
Unlike Facebook and Instagram where content is automatically muted and it’s a best practice to optimize videos for sound off, TikTok is the opposite. Users browsing their For Your Page on TikTok will be shown full screen videos with sound on and each piece of content served based on individual engagement and interests. Compare that to the Instagram Discover section where users see thumbnails of posts as well as muted videos and Reels, which they can choose to engage with, or not.
Keep It Short and Simple
Multiple studies recommend the ideal video length is 9-15 seconds with no longer than 60 seconds
With this being said, it’s vital to create hooks in the opening frames
“Don’t make ads. Make TikToks.”
It’s the north star of TikTok content guidelines as brands will perform much better interacting more like an individual than a business.
Humor and authenticity are key
Be consistent
The TikTok algorithm looks at the amount of activity and engagement a post has in determining its reach, but according to TikTok it does not factor in total follower counts or virality of previous videos. What this means is even if your brand is completely new to TikTok, you’re only one piece of content away from going viral. Give yourself plenty of at bats.
A best practice in terms of what to create is 1/3 original content, 1/3 jumping on trending topics, 1/3 directly engaging with your community.
These are just a few tips to get you started, but the key is to just experiment with your voice and your messaging. It’s your brand, but don’t pigeonhole yourself into one type of content out of the gate. The more types of content you experiment with and create, the more opportunities you’ll have to find and reach new audiences.
Digital marketing is not the shiny new object it was a decade ago, but is still a crucial piece of any business’ tool kit. Privacy concerns from users have pushed tech giants like Meta, Google, Apple and others to adopt stricter security features, making it more difficult for user activity to be tracked online thus providing a conundrum for marketers.
That is great news for the consumer who is wary of one too many oddly specific and prescient ad placements. It’s not as welcome news for marketing professionals who have poured millions of dollars into digital because of how granular they could get with ad targeting and the detailed reporting that followed.
Apple introduced App Tracking Transparency in 2021, an explicit opt out option presented to iPhone users regarding in-app activity tracking, which threw a wrench into many marketer’s digital strategies because it fundamentally altered how campaigns on platforms like Facebook and Instagram were run. Facebook itself has claimed the iOS privacy change will cost them $10 Billion in 2022 alone.
Just a few years ago a marketer could target a hundred people on Facebook and track 10 definitive conversions from that original audience. Over time Facebook increased the minimum size of a custom audience that one could create with externally uploaded information (i.e. email lists) due to data scraping concerns. The nexus event of these privacy concerns originate from the disaster that was Cambridge Analytica.
News stories like that, the trend of social media algorithms favoring sensational and engaging content above all else, and even Congressional hearings, have led to public pushback, putting tech giants on their heels forcing them to adapt.
Marketers, as is their nature, were forced to do the same.
So now with the privacy and security concerns of users leading to changes made by the platforms in response, the easy days are a thing of the past.
That doesn’t mean that digital marketing is any less effective though. It just means every business needs to go beyond just the numbers of what the CPA is on this creative targeting that audience vs another.
Here are the Top 5 Ways to Maximize Your Marketing Amidst Customers’ Privacy Concerns
1.) Influencer Marketing
The effectiveness of Influencer Marketing lies in the ability to partner with a personality that consumers already trust and admire. Partnering with creators allows a brand to go beyond direct marketing and provides a warm referral. Facebook has recently doubled down on Influencer Marketing with a full Creator Marketplace for marketers to find and work with top talent.
“Research from Meta for Business in 2020 found that 84% of global consumers say they would purchase, try or recommend a product based on influencer content if it is relevant.
Influencer marketing is especially powerful in driving sales when paired with other ads. Facebook and Instagram campaigns that combined regular ads and influencer ads are 85%3 more likely to drive people to add products to shopping carts, compared with using regular ads alone, according to 2021 Meta for Business research…For brands, the most effective influencers to partner with are those seen as authentic, trustworthy and relatable by their audiences. In fact, 60% of global consumers say they’d follow a brand, product or service after seeing it promoted by a creator who shares their values and interests.
2.) Put a Face to Your Brand
It’s incredibly rare for a brand to build sustainable success through advertising alone. It takes branding and marketing to drive awareness and make people familiar with what a business is offering. Putting a face to your brand helps create a connection, build a community and a sense of trust, but most importantly it arouses emotion.
“Emotions drive people to action. They make us laugh, shout, and cry, and they make us talk, share, and buy.” – Contagious: Why Things Catch On
3.) You Have to Give Before You Can Ask
In the era of privacy concerns online, trust takes time to build between brand and consumer. It’s important to understand that you can’t always be looking to sell, especially not in the first interaction with a user. Provide content that’s meaningful, educational, informative, and entertaining. Connect with your target audience and build a tribe of users that want to be associated with your brand. Provide more than you ask for so when you do go for the ask, users are ready, willing, and able.
4.) Differentiate Your Content
Too many brands create one piece of content and then share the same exact thing on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. It isn’t just a recommendation anymore, it is vital to differentiate your content.
Give people a reason to follow and engage with you on different platforms or you run the risk of siloing your audiences. Create native content for each platform in order to reach the user where they are, but more importantly reach them with content that speaks to the behavior of the specific platform.
5.) Become More Than Transactional.
Provide value beyond just the product you hope to sell if you want to build a lasting relationship with customers. For a brick and mortar business that might mean selling coffee in the morning to reach customers at different times of the day while eliciting different behaviors.
Another example of becoming more than transactional is the renowned customer service of e-commerce pet retailer Chewy. With big box stores, Amazon, and local pet stores it’s difficult to cut through the white noise when many customers are just comparing prices. Chewy became more than transactional with its personal touch in customer service.
With articles appearing on the likes of Fortune and the Today Show, the customer service interactions of Chewy include not just refunds, but handwritten notes and even flowers delivered to customer’s doors.
Customers will remember you and more importantly talk about you if the relationship becomes more than a transaction.
Red Zmudzien 