No one knows brand social media like Rachel Karten

The Link In Bio writer has thoughts on brands personifying too close to the sun.

Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, from Kate Lindsay and Nick Catucci.🧩

#tbt. —Kate

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During one of the speeches and ceremonies that made up my college graduation weekend, the speaker implored us crazy kids to get off Facebook and Twitter and experience real life. I remember being turned off by these comments, because a not-insignificant percentage of their intended audience was likely about to go work in social media with the degrees they would shortly be handed. Sure, not everyone was going to be an influencer, but they were probably going to work at a corporation—and as we know almost 10 years later, corporations are everywhere on social media. 

They’re in TikTok comments and sponsored videos, responding to your DMs about missing orders, and appearing on Instagram Stories enough times that you’re like fine, I’ll buy the clogs (this example is based on a true story). Each of those elements alone is its own full-time job, and advising the people working those jobs is, too. That’s where Rachel Karten comes in. 

Karten, who previously led social at Bon Appetit, is a social media consultant and author of Link In Bio, “a social media newsletter featuring the people who actually press post.” The very nature of corporate social media dictates that the workers behind the accounts remain anonymous. Karten uses her newsletter to help them connect with each other, plus provide commentary on, and insights into, the industry. 

Last summer she compiled a survey of over 1,000 social media workers into a salary breakdown across gender identities, racial identities, experience, and role. She also provides context, and sometimes skepticism, when it comes to increasingly chaotic brand antics. When the Duolingo owl becomes a legitimate celebrity on TikTok and PBR tweets about eating ass, Karten is the one to turn to. In this interview for paid subscribers, Karten and I talk about the pressure to personify brands, what they should do during historical events, and how to know when it’s all gone too far.