Consistency is King: Post 1-2 times daily with valuable content—educational posts, behind-the-scenes, or entertaining moments. Followers need to know what to expect.

Use All Features: Reels for discovery, Stories for daily engagement, carousels for education. The algorithm rewards accounts that use multiple formats.

Smart Hashtags: Mix 5-10 niche hashtags (#organicwellnessshots) with 5-10 broader ones (#wellness). Avoid oversaturated tags.

Genuine Engagement: Respond to every comment and spend 15-20 minutes daily engaging with similar accounts and potential customers.

Strategic Collaborations: Partner with micro-influencers and complementary brands whose audiences align with yours.

Shareable Content: Create "save-worthy" posts like ingredient benefits or "screenshot this" content. Saves signal value to the algorithm.

Cross-Promote: Drive followers from email, TikTok, and website to Instagram.

Bottom Line: Focus on attracting engaged followers who care about your brand—1,000 wellness enthusiasts beat 10,000 random followers.

Campaign Analysis: Liquid Death's "Death to Plastic" LaunchCampaign Overview: Liquid Death positioned canned water as the "punk rock" alternative to plastic bottles, targeting health-conscious millennials who felt disconnected from typical wellness branding.

What Made It Successful:

Bold Brand Positioning: They completely flipped wellness marketing conventions—using death metal aesthetics and irreverent humor instead of serene nature imagery. This immediately differentiated them in a crowded market.

Community-First Strategy: Rather than traditional advertising, they built a cult following through memes, collaborations with tattoo artists, and partnerships that felt authentic to their audience.

Content Innovation: Their social content looked nothing like other beverage brands—think horror movie parodies and heavy metal music videos. This made them instantly shareable and memorable.

Results: Went from $0 to $700M valuation in 4 years, with massive organic social following and retail expansion into major chains.

Key Takeaway for Elixir Shots: While our brand voice is completely different, the core lesson applies—authentic differentiation beats following category conventions. For Elixir Shots, this could mean leaning heavily into the family physician founder story and the Hawaii origin, rather than generic wellness messaging.

The campaign showed that knowing your audience deeply and speaking to them authentically (even if it alienates others) creates stronger brand loyalty than trying to appeal to everyone.

Here's how I stay current with digital marketing trends:

Daily Sources: I scan Social Media Examiner, Later's blog, and platform updates from Instagram/TikTok for Business to catch algorithm changes and new features.

Competitor Analysis: I follow top wellness and CPG brands, especially family-owned companies breaking into retail, to see what content formats are working.

Hands-On Testing: I use the platforms as both marketer and consumer, testing new features and dedicating 20% of content calendar space to experimenting with emerging trends.

Community Networks: I'm active in marketing Slack groups and communities where professionals share real-time insights before they hit mainstream publications.

Data Validation: I validate trends against our own analytics and competitor performance—a trend only matters if it drives results for our specific audience and brand voice.

This multi-layered approach helps me distinguish between fleeting fads and meaningful shifts that can authentically support Elixir Shots' growth story.