TikTok has been everywhere in 2020. It’s not often that a social networking app becomes the subject of international intrigue, but when President Trump announced that he planned to ban the app (and then walked those plans back), it brought new attention to what had previously been thought of as a predominantly Gen Z platform. As that generation reaches legal drinking age and begins to shape the culture and industry around drinking, the creativity and exploration in the drinks space on TokTok is fascinating.
On this week’s episode of the VinePair Podcast, Adam Teeter, Erica Duecy, and Zach Geballe discuss what drinks culture currently looks like on TikTok, how brands, bartenders, and others can look to use the platform to grow their audiences, and why combining TikTok’s extremely powerful algorithm with an online marketplace could create massive opportunities.
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Adam: From Brooklyn, New York, I’m Adam Teeter
Erica: In Jersey City, I’m Erica Duecy.
Zach: And in Seattle, Washington, I’m Zach Geballe.
A: And this is the VinePair Podcast. Before we get into today’s hot topic, which is TikTok — and if you’re not on TikTok we’re going to teach you everything you need to know about TikTok, because you’ve probably heard a lot about TikTok in the past few months — a word from our sponsor. This podcast is sponsored by Goslings Family Reserve Old Rum. Goslings Family Reserve Old Rum is crafted from the same incomparable Bermuda blend as the renowned Black Seal Rum. But it’s barrel aged even longer, until it acquires an extra luscious nuance, complexity, much like a rare Scotch or Cognac. Each bottle is hand-numbered, hand-labeled, and dipped in black sealing wax, the same way Goslings first bottled rum in the early 1900s. Consider it the ultimate sipping rum, because we do. So does the Caribbean Journal who named it the No. 1 aged rum in the world. Find this rare rum on reservebar.com where, for a limited time, you’ll save $15 off your order with the code “VinePair.” And now to our show. We’re going to start a new segment here on the VinePair Podcast, before we get into witty banter, which I always enjoy with the two of you, what we’re drinking this week. We’ve had a lot of listeners email in and ask us what we are drinking so that we can help them discover some of the things they should be drinking. As brief as possible, let’s talk about some of the stuff we’re drinking this week. Erica, why don’t you kick us off, what are you drinking this week?
E: In the past couple of weeks, I have moved into my fall bourbon drinking, and how I like to drink my bourbon is in a Manhattan. And, the thing I’ve been doing, which I think is an amazing trick for people, is mini Manhattans. Instead of making a full Manhattan, I just make a half recipe so it’s like a little tiny guy. Sometimes I just don’t want the calories or the sugar or the alcohol of a full Manhattan, but I’m still getting my fix every night, which I really enjoy. The bourbon that is fueling my Manhattan this week is the Woodford Reserve Distiller’s Select. It’s a bottle that I think provides a really good price to value. I think you can find it from $33 to $36, depending on where you’re trying to buy it, but it’s really an awesome bourbon. So I recommend it.
A: That’s awesome. Zach, what about you?
Z: Well, first of all, Erica, I’m impressed that you can apparently settle for a mini Manhattan. I definitely need at least a regular Manhattan, sometimes a maxi Manhattan, whatever the opposite is. I know we’ve talked about this before but I felt compelled the last couple of days, and again will tonight, to drink some Napa wine. What’s going on in Napa right now is really, really devastating losses to some absolute institutions there. And unfortunately the fires there, as of a recording time, are still nowhere near under control, so it’s possible that sadly the toll will be much greater. And, for me, this specific wine that I’m thinking of is from Cain, which is one of my favorite wineries there on Spring Mountain. Unfortunately it was really, really badly damaged the last couple of days. I think all of the 2019 and 2020 vintages were lost. I think the vineyards mostly seemed to be OK as of now, but again, getting details is still tricky. I’m going to have a bottle of Cain Five, which is their flagship wine, tonight. It’s a very classic Bordeaux blend using the five principle Bordeaux varieties. It’s delicious, it’s a bit of a splurge, but I have a couple of bottles in my collection and it just feels like the right thing to do. Chris Howell, the winemaker, is a really lovely guy. I got the opportunity to have dinner with him last year and he did something that winemakers rarely do, that I love, which is he mostly poured other people’s wine. I actually had to coax out of him his own wine. That’s a kind of modesty that maybe I don’t share, but I appreciate, so that’s what I’m drinking.
A: Cain’s amazing, they were on our Top 50 Wines of the Year a few years ago. They were No. 4 for Cain Five. That wine is really amazing, it’s a huge bummer that everyone’s going through that. Thanks for taking us down, Zach, but it was necessary. I don’t know if I’ve talked about this yet on the podcast. At the VinePair picnic a few weeks ago, I brought it out for the first time and now I have one in my fridge, which is St. Agrestis. It’s a distillery in New York, they started making Negronis in these beautiful bottles, RTDs (ready to drink), a few years ago, and this year they had the brilliant idea of putting them in a box. So they’re boxed Negronis like boxed wine. There’s 20 Negronis in the box for $60. And I have to say $3 and a Negroni is a pretty sweet deal. It has really great gin in it from Greenhook Ginsmiths. It’s awesome, more people should be buying this. I know you can get it at Astor so if you live around the country and you want to go to Astor Wines, I know you can buy it there, and I think they shipped to 40 states around the country. But this thing is just awesome to have in the fridge. At the end of the day, if I don’t feel like making a cocktail, I can easily just open the fridge, put an ice cube in my rocks glass, if I want to add some citrus I will — I usually do, and you just have a great, well-made Negroni. Naomi loves it too. I think they’re claiming that it will last for a year. It’s definitely not going to last for a year in my fridge because I’m going to finish it. But that it could last for a year I think is awesome, and I can’t believe that they’re the only people that have done this. More people should be doing it, I think it’s so cool to have a box of cocktails in my fridge. So that’s what I’m drinking.
Z: And it gives you that really beautiful ease of service, you just pour it.
A: Yeah. It’s awesome. I’m not dirtying my mixology equipment, I’m not worried now about if I have enough Campari still on my bar — or some other bitter liqueur, or how fresh is my vermouth, I’m not worried about any of that stuff at this point. And now it allows me to play with other cocktails. I felt like a lot of times I would just default to a Negroni at home when I was making cocktails, and now I figure I’ll default to other things and just have this in the fridge at all times. It’s awesome.
Z: Frankly, I want more things in my life in a bag or in a box. I used to be like a lot of wine people, turn my nose up at the idea, but the more I’ve been around it, it’s such a great solution for a lot of things. It’s easy, it lasts, the space it takes up is very small, which is great. Bottles on a bar can be clunky, and not that the bottles for a Negroni are usually that difficult to fit in there, but I want more things in a bag and box please.
A: It’s funny, when I went away for Naomi’s parents’ 40th anniversary two weekends ago, we brought up a box of white wine from Sokol Blosser, the producer in Oregon who makes, I think, pretty solid Pinot for the price and pretty solid Chardonnay. And they just had a white blend. And I put it in the box and it was the perfect thing for the weekend because people didn’t have to ask me — you guys are probably in the same situation when you’re with family or friends, I’ll always get, “What should we open next? Can you open something? I’m not sure what’s open. There’s all this stuff on the counter.” And now there’s white wine in the fridge. It’s three o’clock in the afternoon, if you wanted to have a white wine and go sit down by the lake or go have a white wine, and people loved it. And I think you’re right, Zach, there’s a convenience thing there. And I think more people should do it and get creative with it. That’s why I love this cocktail thing. This is just so stupidly obvious yet also so creative.
E: And I think that’s why we’re seeing the huge explosion of RTD cocktails right now. I just received a whole shipment last night of cans that are Crafthouse Cocktails from Charles Joly. They’ve made 10 different craft cocktails that are in these little aluminum bottles, and I can’t wait to try them. Tim, one of our staff writers, and I we’re just talking about how we need to do a huge roundup and tasting of all of these RTDs — we should probably do it on the podcast, too — and take people through what are the biggest ones, what are the best ones you can buy, and where can you buy them online.
A: For those of us who are ignorant, who’s Charles Joly?
E: He has won all sorts of top bartender of the year awards for every award. He has won all the awards for best bartender. He was out of Chicago, I’m not sure where he’s located right now, but fantastic talent. I’m super excited to try the mixtures that they have put into the bottle, how they’ve done the citrus stabilization. I can’t wait to dive into those.
A: That’s awesome.
Z: Erica, maybe you need your own Manhattan in a bag or box; that way it’s even easier to make yourself a Manhattan.
E: Yeah, I’m going to have to get myself one of those little cute barrels and a little barrel aged one on the counter.
A: So guys, today’s topic is the thing we’ve all been waiting to talk about: TikTok and alcohol. So before we jump too much into this topic, I want to be very clear to anyone listening who’s in the business, there is no way right now in TikTok to guarantee that if you are on there making drinks you are able to age-verify whether you are talking to people over 21 or not. So please bear that in mind with everything we’re discussing. If you’re a brand thinking about getting on TikTok, and spending money, and you are worried about being compliant, again, nothing that we’re discussing right now should be taken as advice because there is no way, again, just like with the Snap platform at this moment, that you can truly guarantee whether or not the people that you’re posting your videos to are 21. With that being said, I think TikTok is one of the most exciting platforms right now for what is happening in the alcohol space. I think there is a ton of creativity happening on the platform. I’m going to say it is mostly in spirits. I’m not seeing it as much in wine and beer, but TikTok is amazing. I also lost my entire life on TikTok recently. I think I turned it on at seven in the evening and all of a sudden Naomi came out to the couch and it was 3 a.m., and she said, “Are you coming to bed?” I said, “What? Oh my God, I’ve just been on TikTok.” That’s because the algorithm is so good. And I’m talking so good. I’ve never seen another tech platform that had an algorithm that learned this quickly and is this smart about the things you like. I can go down crazy rabbit holes where I’m learning how to bake bread by a ton of people, and now I’m obviously in drinks TikTok. That’s why I’m curious what you guys’ experiences are. I told you guys a few weeks ago I wanted to do a TikTok podcast and both of you said, “OK, fine. We’ll freaking download it.” So before I talk about everything TikTok and sort of give the whole history of TikTok, I’d love to hear, what are your impressions of it now? You both have been on the platform. What do you think?
E: From my perspective, I know why the algorithm is so good. It’s because they’re using AI. And so they are able to tag all of the objects in a video and then that helps them serve up content similar to the things that you were looking at in the prior videos or in the videos that you’ve watched the most. And I do think that the algorithm is amazing. I went down the rabbit hole of looking at flair bartending, and then it was actually hard to move away from that. Flair bartending is having more than a moment, it is dominant on that platform and booming. And a lot of the videos that are being posted are from Russia, from throughout Europe, from Asia, most of the cocktails that you’re seeing are in metric measurements, they’re not in the States. And the amount of creativity, I agree, is pretty fascinating. There’s just a lot happening there, but there’s also a lot of junk to get through. I looked pretty hard for wine, it’s really hard to find wine content, and I did not find very much that I found super compelling. So it definitely seems to be a place for cocktails and flair bartending. But I’m curious to hear what you guys have found.
A: Zach?
Z: So I think it’s really interesting that you guys both really talked about how effective the algorithm was because my impression has been that it’s actually the effectiveness of the algorithm that, to this point, kind of exposes to me the limitations of the platform. And by that I mean that when you have such a tight correlation between what you’ve previously watched and what you are going to be served up in the future, I think it creates a real homogeneity. And that’s the thing that I was surprised by, and I think it’s born out not just in the drink space but with this TikTok challenge, so much of the platform seems to be around recreating someone else’s popular video and doing it yourself. And I can certainly understand how for a lot of the user base, which let’s be honest skews a lot younger than us, typically. That’s a hugely important thing. We all went through a phase in our teens or 20s where we wanted to be just like someone else, we wanted to copy their style, their mannerisms, their vocabulary — whether that was someone we knew, or someone on TV.
A: I think you’re taking the really old man position right now. And I’m going to say that everything you’re saying is completely incorrect, but I will correct it after you make your point. But yes, I think you’re definitely taking the crotchety old man position right now.
Z: But here’s the thing, I think there’s a fundamental challenge, and it’s a challenge that the drinks industry faced, in some ways, with Instagram as well. Although I think there’s a little bit of a difference there, and it’s that a lot of the things that I think people typically find appealing about alcohol are pretty difficult to translate to that medium. And we’ve seen that, that’s been an issue with wine and beer, and to a lesser extent, cocktails. There’s more of a visual aspect to those, it’s hard to translate those into compelling visual content. One of the reasons, Erica, I think you don’t see a lot of great wine content is, what exactly does a great 15 second wine video look like? I know at VinePair we’ve certainly tried to produce that, and I think some of the stuff we’ve done has been really good. But it is very hard to make a compelling piece of video and audio content about something that is deeply experiential. And so I think that’s why you see flair bartending so big because it looks cool. It’s fun to watch people do that. I certainly watched plenty of videos of people making crazy a** concoctions but I also, and again, crotchety old man or not, I also looked at a lot of those things and thought I would never, ever, ever want to drink that. I left those drinks behind 15 years ago. And so if you’re 21 and 22 and especially if you’re in a place where you can go out to bars safer than another part of the world or whatever, f*** it, have fun with it. Enjoy these crazy a** drop shots that people are coming up with where the drink changes color. But I don’t know, that’s not compelling content to me, personally. I’m still kind of at a loss to figure out how that translates into a platform that I’m going to rely on regularly.
A: I’m not seeing much flair bartending, so that’s interesting that the two of you are. And that’s what I think is actually interesting about TikTok. So, TikTok isn’t just about copying. There’s a little bit of that in the pure form of it, but it’s a lot about having fun and being creative and being your own person. What I think is very interesting about TikTok is some of the largest influencers on the platform I’ve never seen before. I don’t know if when you guys were watching you ever saw the Sway Boys, or you saw Hype House, saw some of these massive celebrities that have tens of millions of followers, I certainly haven’t. The only exposure I’ve ever had is reading Taylor Lorenz, the very well known New York Times style report. I saw a little bit of flair bartending in the beginning but now I’m seeing a lot of very serious mixology. And I’m seeing a lot of those personalities. And I think what’s interesting about it is it really is allowing those that are more entertaining, those that are providing a service for people are getting more views. But what’s cool about TikTok is it’s not just about who you follow, unlike Instagram. So it’s not about creating this profile where you’re pushing people over and over “Follow me, follow me, follow me, follow me. I’ll follow you. You follow me,” that kind of thing. That’s not how TikTok works. TikTok just rewards good content. And I think that that’s what makes the platform so exciting to so many people, and I think it is really exciting, especially for the spirit space. If you are a bartender who is engaging, and that is really great at making drinks, and that can tell a story while you make those drinks, and can show you a beautiful cocktail at the end, it doesn’t matter if you are a bartender who owns a really well known bar in Manhattan or you’re a bartender that is making drinks somewhere else in the middle of the country and you’re not the bar owner but you just know how to make a great cocktail, you can have a platform on TikTok and really build a name for yourself. And I think in that regard, the platform is very exciting and very different from anything else that’s existed before it. I mean, look, you saw Vine tried to create this and they weren’t able to because the algorithm was s***. Instagram has tried to mimic it, they can’t. So it says a lot about what the technology is. Also why China is never going to allow it to be sold to the United States, because the algorithm is so valuable. But it’s really actually, I think, a very fascinating place to learn how to make drinks, if you can find those right people. And then yes, you could start following them. But what I think is cool is that there are little niches in everything. You are both right, there doesn’t really seem to be any wine TikTok. But I think that’s because it’s very hard to make engaging wine content. In general, like you said, Zach, it’s very difficult. The stuff I’ve seen on Instagram is pretty bad. I think we do a very good job with Keith’s 15 second wine reviews. We’ve brought them over to TikTok, some of them are doing well, some of them not as much. Our explainer videos are doing incredibly well, people looking for knowledge on what to do and how to understand the platform. But wine content as a whole on social media is pretty difficult. If you post a bottle shot on Instagram, I don’t know necessarily that that moves mountains for that winery and will cause that winery to sell out. Same with beer Instagram, I’m not really sure. But cocktails, there’s a real opportunity to make those cocktails and also be entertaining at the same time, and that is why I do think flair bartending has taken off in these certain circles, but why there’s a lot of other kinds of bartending that are also finding a moment, as well as just people who are being silly. People who are just saying, “Oh, here’s how I’m mixing my Truly today.” But I think that alcohol does have this really interesting space there and people are being playful with it. And I like it because it embodies what we’ve always said at VinePair that there’s all these ways to experience drinks and there’s all these different ways to learn about drinks and people are being really open and honest with the drinks they like and are showing. It’s a great place to understand what people are interested in right now, regardless of age, I think.
E: From my perspective, I think what is interesting about TikTok right now is that if you do have really good content, you can rack up a ton of views. You can have far more reach on that platform than you can on many others, if the content resonates, and there’s a variety of ways to do that. But I think that brands, if they are looking to get into the space, there’s a couple things to consider. First, as the platform develops here in the States, I do think that they probably will allow some sort of age gating. And I think that day is probably coming soon. So the Chinese version, Douyin, has links in the videos to purchase products and to tip creators like they do on the Twitch platform. And that functionality is expected to come out on the U.S. version sometime soon. So when the monetization becomes a reality on TikTok, which could be six months, who knows, then I think they’re going to see that that’s the way to make money for the platform as well, and start age gating so that we can have more regulated products that are able to be shown to viewers who are the right age. But in the meantime, I’d say for brands that are looking to get into the platform and start to build an audience, I’d say any of that portrait view, Instagram stories — repurpose them, just repost them, reuse that content, and then you’ll start to build an audience. And then, at some point, there’s going to be the tools for brands to monetize. You might as well start now with the type of content that is engaging but definitely doesn’t show young people, any young people imbibing at all. I was reading that TikTok in the past six months removed 49 million videos for content that depicted regulated goods with minors. And, for context, the number of video views per day on the platform is over a billion, so that’s a small percentage, but the ability for brands to use this platform more effectively is going to change and it’s going to change soon.
A: All you have to do is look at Walmart getting a piece, or potentially getting a piece, of this deal and realize that they’re going to start using that algorithm to make sure that, “Oh, all of a sudden Zach’s been looking at a lot of cocktail videos and a lot of those videos also included really nice aged rums, only he lives in a state, let’s say L.A., where we actually can sell alcohol through Walmart. And he has a Walmart account, why don’t we have one of those show up at his house and he can return it if he wants, or if he keeps it and he likes it then we’re going to charge him.” I think there’s a huge opportunity of that coming very fast with how powerful this algorithm is. I think, for me, it’s really interesting because — I’m obviously the TikTok fan here, I’ve spent a lot of time on the platform — of the ways people can create personalities for themselves. There’s this woman I’ve been following, she’s ThirstyLA, and all of her cocktail videos she’s dressed up in sort of ’50s attire, ’50s music in the background, it’s all very atmospheric. And then you have a guy like Thirsty Whale, and he’s in his apartment with a very ridiculous bar, let’s be clear a way more ridiculous bar than you can think of. The only person, I think, who has a bigger bar is probably Aaron Goldfarb. Very heavily stocked, making drinks, and it looks like he’s in a professional bar. And I think people have figured things out and they’re creating their own personas, and I just think it’s awesome.
Z: Here’s my question that I have that comes out of this, which is, I think one thing that you guys have both talked about that really intrigues me is at some point is TikTok more an entertainment platform or a commerce platform? And it isn’t to say that you can’t necessarily be both, but I think about a lot of the examples that you’ve given and I think the person who might watch some guy with an elaborate home bar make really fancy elaborate cocktails, that might be entertaining for you, and for lots of people. It might be entertaining for me, but I don’t know that it’s going to then cause me to go out and spend any money. I might go, “Wow, that guy has a bunch of cool bottles,” but I’m not going to buy some obscure black walnut liqueur just because I saw this guy make a drink with it. I’m going to go, “Huh. Interesting. Cool.” And if I went out to a bar maybe I’d see if they have it and maybe I’d ask them to make it.
A: Zach, you clearly don’t understand influencers because, with all due respect, there’s a ton of people that already are buying what these people are pushing. One of the biggest gins that I’ve seen a lot, and clearly this must be a campaign, I don’t know if you both are familiar with Empress Gin?
Z: Oh yeah, but they’ve been doing this all over platforms.
A: I guarantee you, people are buying it because that’s what these people are using.
Z: That’s a great question. Let’s pull the Nielsen data. I don’t know. You could be right.
A: They wouldn’t do it if it didn’t.
Z: Adam, I read a lot of stories about Instagram influencers who people gave lots of money to and it turned out that they didn’t do s*** for brands.
A: From what I’ve looked at, for the brands that do it a lot, it works or they wouldn’t keep doing it, for brands that actually aren’t just dipping their toe in it. Haus, whose co-founders I interviewed, is a perfect example. They figured out the influencer model and they’re 10x sales right now on platforms. A brand like that who is doing it has figured it out and also knows who to go to. If the influencer has a very loyal following. That’s going to be the issue: How many people are actually following the person? You’re right, I don’t think an influencer that has 3,000 followers is moving something for anyone. But I think certain influencers with very loyal communities absolutely do move products. Look, I’m the first person to pooh-pooh influencers. I’d think, “Oh, why are we paying attention to all these different influencers?” But at the end of the day, a lot of them who are good and who have really engaging content and who are shouting out this one product over and over and over again, especially when it’s not really clear that it’s being paid for, do move products. They just do. And, again, you can argue it all you want for some of the small people, but there would not be a lot of these brands who do it over and over and over again if it didn’t work. These marketing people are paid way too much money to get it wrong.
E: Yeah, I agree with that. I think that if you look at the brands right now that are on Instagram spending a lot of money for influencer marketing, those are the brands that are soon going to be transitioning over to TikTok. Those are the ones that have realized if these campaigns are working for them, and I know a lot of these campaigns do work, that TikTok is going to be the next platform, and they’re probably already experimenting.
A: I think the problem why we don’t have a really clear answer is because a lot of the brands that are big, like the Hendricks of the world or anything owned by, let’s say, the Pernos, the Camparia, the Diageos, they’re not going to take the risk because they are very, very, very, very, very strict about having to make sure that at least 70 percent viewability, 90 percent of any platform — whether it’s Instagram, our site, whatever — is 21-plus. And TikTok can’t guarantee that yet. Whereas a company like Empress Gin, I don’t know who owns them, may not care yet. So you’re going to have some of these smaller craft brands take the risks and they’re going to play much more than someone else would because they’re not as worried. Aviation was the same way. There’s a lot of ads that they got away with because they were a smaller brand, even though they were owned by Ryan Reynolds, to some extent that a Diageo never would have done. Now that Diageos bought them, Ryan will not be allowed to do an ad making fun of Peloton and encouraging you to drink after an exercise. But at the time, they could get away with it because they were smaller, and it’s all self-policing anyways. So that I think it’s going to be really interesting to see. But as a whole, I think the platform is really interesting. I think that people who play with it and figure it out are going to be pretty successful. Again, I don’t know if that’s going to translate to success in other things, but I think you might see some bartenders build profiles, get book deals, whatever off of TikTok, for sure.
Z: I think the one point you made, which I think is the best one, is that a platform, especially a relatively new one, at least to American audiences, always affords opportunities for new people to make a name for themselves. It was true on Instagram. It’s true on Twitch, not so much for our industry but for lots of other ones, and so I agree. You know, if you are able to create a presence, if you’re able to be engaging in the forum TikTok promotes, then yeah, you can have real success and you can have lots of views. And we know that in our culture views translate into influence and influence translates into product moved, according to Adam, and so I think there’s the possibility there. I was a little late to Instagram. I’m cool with that, too, but I look forward to seeing what comes out of it. I think you’re right, there’s some really interesting ways to convey drinks to people and convey drinks culture, and I look forward to my life two years from now.
A: I think what makes the platform so interesting — I realize I’ve talked on a large majority of this podcast — I’ve never made a single TikTok. I just like going on and seeing what’s going on. And there’s different platforms for different people. We talked about this before we jumped on to record: Erica is back on Twitter tweeting a lot more. Zach, you’re on Twitter a lot. I’m not the biggest Twitter fan, and I don’t really go on ever. I don’t even go on to view. Twitter is not my platform. And that was an older platform. I’m into commerce and pushing things, I’ve never seen anything get pushed through Twitter. I’ve seen massive people tweet out stories, and no one clicks. That’s not what Twitter is. Twitter is all about the feed. Earlier on, when I was really interested in building VinePair, we weren’t interested in people just knowing about the article. I’m interested in people actually reading them. And so we were finding much more success on platforms like Pinterest and Facebook, so I was drawn to them. And now really Instagram. What I think is cool about TikTok, in terms of cocktails, too, is I think Instagram has really rewarded a different kind of cocktail maker. It’s someone who’s really good at making cocktails and also photographing them, and TikTok actually rewards, a little bit, the opposite. It rewards someone with a really good personality. There’s a lot of drinkstagramers who I think could never translate to TikTok, and probably vice versa. There’s a lot of people who are becoming really big in the drink space on TikTok that probably don’t take the best photo. Or don’t take as good a photo as some of the other people. And it would take them a very long time to build that same audience, but they are really engaging, and they seem like a really fun person that you’d love to grab a drink with, and they seem super accessible when they make the cocktail and they tell you a story. And so they grow pretty quickly. I think that’s what makes each interesting for different people, and why everyone has to play around with whatever platforms they’re on to figure out what they like.
E: My takeaway from it is there are now social platforms for all personality types. Some of them are more monetizable than others. Brands will wait to see which ones are going to end up being the most monetizable. They’re changing all the time. But then again, you’ve got to watch the Social Dilemma, if you haven’t watched already, and you’re going to delete them all.
A: It’s Social Network’s 10th anniversary.
E: If you have not watched Social Dilemma already, that’s something that everyone should watch, especially you, Zach, with kids. You’ll never let your kids download any social platform ever. I promise.
A: With that said, let us know what you think of the podcast. If you’re on TikTok I’d love to hear what you think, and what you think about the platform. Email us at podcast@vinepair.com. If you’re a marketer that plays around with working with employers, we’d also love to have your perspective and proof that I’m right. That would also be something that you could send an email to podcast@vinepair.com. One more word from Goslings Family Reserve Old Rum. Goslings Family Reserve Old Rum is crafted from the same incomparable Bermuda blend and as the renowned Black Seal Rum. But it’s barrel aged even longer, until it acquires an extra luscious nuance, complexity, much like a rare Scotch or Cognac. Each bottle is hand-numbered, hand-labeled, and dipped in black sealing wax, the same way Goslings first bottled rum in the early 1900s. Consider it the ultimate sipping rum, because we do. So does the Caribbean Journal, who named it the No. 1 aged rum in the world. Find this rare rum on reservebar.com where, for a limited time, you’ll save $15 off your order with the code VinePair. Again, that’s reservebar.com, use the code “VinePair,” and buy a bottle of Family Reserve from Goslings. Zach, Erica, I’ll talk to you next week.
E: See you then.
Z: Sounds great.
A: Thanks so much for listening to the VinePair Podcast. If you enjoy listening to us every week, please leave us a review or rating on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever it is that you get your podcasts. It really helps everyone else discover the show. Now, for the credits. VinePair is produced and hosted by Zach Geballe, Erica Duecy, and me, Adam Teeter. Our engineer is Nick Patri and Keith Beavers. I’d also like to give a special shout-out to my VinePair co-founder Josh Malin and the rest of the VinePair team for their support. Thanks so much for listening and we’ll see you again right here next week.
Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.
