Hey y’all,

It’s EJ again… And if you haven’t been living under a giant rock, you know this past Sunday was Super Bowl Sunday, where the Eagles and Chiefs went head-to-head. While I wasn’t necessarily enamoured with the long-awaited Super Bowl commercials, I found it interesting how certain brands were taking advantage of the hype around the cultural phenomenon that is the Super Bowl. Surprisingly, my favorite language-learning app, Duolingo went crazy with the Super Bowl references and Kendrick-Drake beef.

Duolingo’s X account posted numerous sassy and hilarious jabs, poking fun at Rap-icon Drake, the Chiefs and Taylor Swift fans. One of their promotions for Duolingo’s music learning feature was a post with all the Duolingo characters singing the famous, the controversial and derogatory line from 2025 Halftime show headliner, Kendrick Lamar’s hit “Not Like Us.” The animated Duolingo characters sang “tryna strike a chord, and it’s probably a-minoooorrrrr,” in unison as a clever reference to the famous line Lamar sang during his halftime performance, with threats of being sued.

In one of Duolingo’s X posts from Feb. 10, they reposted about their internal handbook sharing how their brand/brand voice is centered around “wholesome and unhinged.” I think their post quoting “Not Like Us” accomplished just that. Recently, Duolingo also announced their beloved, passive-aggressive, and persistent mascot died. This is generating plenty of buzz on social media with other major brands adding their memes or speculations about how Duo died. CBS News Pittsburgh said, “RIP? The Duolingo Owl is dead, according to a statement from the Pittsburgh-based company. ‘Tbh, he probably died waiting for you to do your lesson, but what do we know.’”

Major streaming platform Netflix posted a parody of a Squid Games scene, showing that the Duolingo mascot has been eliminated from the game. Additionally, the brand is saying instead of buying flowers for Duo’s grave, complete a lesson in his honor. In other words they are using a clever strategy to plug using their services more, and what Duo reminded all of it’s users to do anyway. In the announcement of Duo’s death the brand also mentioned for people to refrain from sharing comments about what they might hate about the brand’s mascot, and instead include a credit card number, they can sign commenters up for Duolingo Max with. Very funny, very strategic, very demure.

Let me know your Super Bowl takeaways in the comments!

Article: Duolingo and others pile mockery on Drake with savage reaction to Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl set 

Hey everybody,

Join me in exploring the social media presence of one of the top music streaming services, Spotify. Here is my stab at identifying their post engagement strategy, effectiveness, strengths/weakness, and responsiveness.

Who is Spotify

Spotify is a massively popular digital music, podcast, and video service that provides access to millions of songs and other content from around the world. Spotify was founded in 2006 in Stockholm, Sweden, by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. The founders wanted to create a legal digital music platform to respond to growing challenge of online music piracy in the early 2000s. I have been a user since middle school and have enjoyed the web-player feature for years. While I suffer through a copious amount of ads, it wasn’t always like that and I prefer not to pay for a subscription to music platforms. However, if I did, I’d still choose Spotify over its competitor Apple Music.

Brand Analysis

Between various social media platforms I tracked Spotify’s social media presence: posting frequency, post engagement (by type: video/image/trend), and other metrics on their Instagram, X, and Facebook accounts. After a seven-day audit of Spotify and their competitor Apple music streaming platforms, here is my brand analysis of Spotify…

Demographics

Spotify’s target audience is young-adult users who fall into the 18 to 34-year-old age range; 55% of its users are the 18 to 34 age demographic. Spotify identifies their audience Gen Z, as having new-found spending power compared to other generations. Their strategy for reaching this 27% of the US population includes a heavy social media presence on Instagram and X. Where as Facebook and TikTok have lower posting frequency and way less engagement. Possibly due to the major artists whose songs they promote, not being as active on other social media platforms like Facebook, TikTok, or even YouTube.

Spotify’s Strategy:

Spotify hits the right notes by sharing fresh music or giving users a trip down nostalgia lane. They utilize celebrity collaborations, tagged their other accounts to increase their engagement and reach. Likewise, Spotify keeps up with the latest online trends i.e. “

• “Astrology girls” where the brand posted “Drop your astrology sign, and we’ll give you a strong match” or
• “Billions Club: The Series” where Spotify showcases the top artists who have over a billion streams.
• “Wrapped” where Spotify personalizes user listening data into a visually engaging and shareable story, they have done “Wrapped” annually around the holiday season 2016 to the present.
• “The Unheard Playlist” where Spotify made a playlist of popular duets across languages for International Women’s Day, but removed female vocals from the tracks emphasizing the songs sound strange without the female voices, just like society. This campaign earned them the number 1 spot on Twitter’s Trending page
• Celebrity collaborations and tagging their other accounts to increase reach
• “Spotify Radar” Spotify’s program since 2020 championing promising artists like Libianca and Tyla

Competitors comparison:

While the two streaming services relatively accomplish the same thing, Apple Music users are in a slightly older user demographic, tend to prefer easy integration with Apple products, lossless and spatial audio support, while Spotify users tend to love listening to podcasts, audiobooks and making playlists.

Both Spotify and Apple Music actively cultivate relationships with influential figures, further amplifying their social media presence and reach. This multi-pronged approach allows them to connect with established artists, empower rising stars, and leverage the influence of figures outside the music sphere, especially for Spotify.

Ex: Spotify’s post in collaboration with Hot Country and Kasey Musgraves helped them expand their reach to her 2.4 million followers.

Content vibe on Spotify over last 14 days:

– New release graphics
– Artist interviews
– Come up Artists
– EQUAL Ambassador
– Top/new Podcast promos

Content vibe on Apple Music over last 14 days:

– New release graphics
– Artist interviews
– Come up Artists
– EQUAL Ambassador
– Top/new Podcast promos
– 4:1 video:image post type ratio

Brand Reponsiveness

Over the week of auditing Spotify, I left two comments on their posts. My comment promoting my blog about Bad Bunny’s new album DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, on Spotify’s “one day closer to the album” tweet yielded 12 views, no replies, and no additional engagement with my blog post. However, tagging Spotify in my initial tweet about my Bad Bunny blog post two weeks earlier may have resulted in higher engagement from the brand. My other Comment on Spotify’s “what 2025 is sounding like so far” post received 3 views.

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats Analysis

Strengths of Spotify social media strategy is its ability to engage its audience. On Instagram and X, Spotify tags the major artists they feature in their posts, drawing in outside fans and reaching new people. Spotify’s balance of campaign material, famous artist, and promotional content seem to keep their followers attention and provide something for fans/Spotify users to talk about in the comments. Similarly on X, Spotify’s rigorous posting schedule helps them stay relevant and usually involves wanting to hear users/followers feedback in the comments, although you rarely see a reply from the brand.

Despite Spotify Advertising making a report for content creators to better understand and perform competitively for the Gen X-ers, Their Facebook content is lacking an awareness/implementation of the the Gen X psychographics they provide on their own website. “Use videos” and ”reply to reviews” are among the top 10 strategies for marketing to Gen X, however less than 20% of their Facebook posts are in a video format, nor showcase information relevant to the Gen xers.

Lower performing content is found on Facebook. I am not sure if the lower response is because they aren’t tailoring the content posted to the Facebook demographic of 81% over the age of 24 or because of the infrequency to which they post. Spotify’s potential Facebook content seems to provide the opportunity to tell users about it’s features, and highlight older more nostalgic artists. They could create more old-school and throwback playlists, or highlight the avalable content Spotify has by generation on their Facebook account

Threats to Spotify could be the sponsorship of the Super Bowl by Apply Music, and the coverage/reach that will afford Apple Music over Spotify. Additionally, Apple Music has some of the biggest artists and icons endorsing their brand in a way Spotify doesn’t have. Even though Spotify launched in 2008 and has 12.5 M followers on instagram and 18.9 M on X, Apple music launched in 2015 and is growing steadily as well.

Overall, I would give the brand strategy an A- for their consistency in posting and ability to get their audience and users involved… And of course their is room for improvement.

We will see if projections for Apple Music’s 5M followers on Instagram or 10.3 M followers on X to increase are on target next week.

References:
Apple Music Statistics By Demographics, Revenue, Users and Facts

Spotify’s Social Media Strategy: Streaming Brilliant Content Globally

Gen Z psychographics: Generational values, lifestyles, and more

Marketing to Gen X: Reaching the Lost Generation

Spotify | The Unheard Playlist | International Women's Day

Leave your most notable fact from the brand analysis in the comments below,

Enthusiastically,

EJ

Hey everybody, EJ here again. 

In January I shared about Bad Bunny’s new iconic album, then I needed to brush up on the whole “X” situation and what in the world is up with that lol. Today, I have news and concerns, in every sense of the word. And of course… it involves Trump and TikTok. 

Yet another platform is subject to involvement with the U.S. Government. I though Elon Musk buying Twitter was going to be the end of it. It seems like all major platforms are either under Meta or owned by a billionaire who is buddy buddy with our current president. I just wonder if the same national security threat, posed because the massively popular platform, TikTok, being owned by a Chinese developer ByteDance goes away when it’s owners are still mining/selling user data, looking for a means to perhaps set an agenda, or acting in the interest of “fattening their wallet”. 

I am concerned the content moderating, algorithm adjustments, and messaging being shared would become partisan and major vehicle for political agenda setting. Because there is so much dependence on the platform with younger generations, I’m concerned of potential manipulation the app could undergo if the U.S. government gets behind yet another major social media platform. 

Eighty-five percent of the platform’s 170 million users in the U.S. are between the ages of 18 and 44. It’s evident that social media is addictive to this demographic, and younger users are more impressionable. What is the agenda I speculate being set through the acquisition of TikTok by an American entity? Well what happens when you become addicted to something someone else controls? You are at the suppliers whim, you are dependent, and depending on what the addiction is, you may do anything for it. The cognitive load being dumped on people watching the news, hearing about the wildfires, Department of Education being overhauled, seeing impacts of the economic crisis the U.S. faces, continued layoffs in all areas of the labor force, and so much uncertainty of what’s to come globally, the constant access to the negative, overwhelming messaging, is desensitizing. 

What may people turn to, to cope? Some may turn to religion, some to substances, some to therapy, but most to doom scrolling, most to experiences that trigger their dopamine and serotonin receptors. With the bulk of TikTok’s users being the future of this country, it’s concerning to think the future of the U.S. belongs to a generation of people so overstimulated by the overwhelming access to information (both good and extraneous/misinformation) that they escape to highly addictive virtual realities, like TikTok, controlled by entities that benefit from the future of the world being desensitized and impotent to making change or resisting politics that don’t align with “American values.” TikTok seems like a one stop shop for entertainment, vicariously living through someone else’s experience, and I think the most dangerously a great form of escapism resulting in comfort and complacency.  

According to Andrew Duehren with the New York Times, the U.S. Government under the Trump administration is striving to finance a wealth fund that would contribute to the U.S. 50% acquisition of the TikTok platform, as stated in his “Trump Calls for Wealth Fund in Executive Order” article. 

“The three-paragraph executive order tasks the Treasury and Commerce Departments with generating a plan within 90 days for creating a such a fund. Sovereign wealth funds are popular in oil-rich countries like Norway and Saudi Arabia that can invest large budget surpluses in projects around the world. But the United States runs persistent, and widening, budget deficits, and it is unclear where the Trump administration could find the money to seed such a fund,” says Duehren.

I suspect the the wealth fund is Trump’s means to resolve the national security threat ByteDance’s ownership of TikTok poses, while regulating its value by not banning the app completely. While I commend the administration for attempting to make a resolution financially beneficial for the U.S. as he states in his January 19 victory rally, I question the motives behind the acquisition because of his proximity to the extremely wealthy individuals/entities that would potentially purchase the app. Also the idea of having a joint venture with China after Trump’s tariff trade war on Chinese imports puts a lot of faith in Xi Jinping’s ability to compartmentalize his feelings about the U.S. 

Lastly, I once learned what makes news, well, newsworthy: timeliness, impact, proximity, human interest, conflict, novelty, and prominence. All in all, while this may sound more like my conspiracy rant than news, the economic position of the U.S., future of TikTok affecting over 170 million americans, and desensitization from overstimulating amounts of information, all seem to be connected, and have the ability to affect everyone if it hasn’t already. I am not hopeless, just feeling concerned.

Until next time,

EJ

Share your thoughts in the comments if you made it this far. XD

Hey everyone,

Why does it feel like so much has happened in the last 7 days? Maybe it’s the 50 million executive orders that were just signed, but a lot sure has transpired in just a short amount of time. Regardless, I hope you and your loved ones are doing well and are remaining positive.

On that note… I am here to talk about just that; positivity… on “X.”

As I delve into the world of “X”, formerly known as Twitter, the number one question I keep asking my self is… Why do people keep using the platform? More personal research on the topic revealed the initial downward spiral “X” faced after Musk’s ownership continues, which wasn’t hard to find out. Stay with me here as I am catching up on the chain-reactions caused by Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover from my recent arrival to the platform for my class.

Ellie Houtailing from the New Republic said in her December article “Elon Musk Dragged for Hypocrisy After Pathetic Plea to X Users” that Musk himself blames users for the poor experince they have on his app.

“Last year, the tech billionaire admitted that the site had lost 90 percent of its value since he acquired it for $44 billion in 2022,” Houtailing said.

The article stated his plea was to suggest users need to post more positive and upbeat content on the platform, disreguarding the fact that current users’ experience is a result of his radical algorithm, content moderation methods, and mass exodus of employees that occured with his acquisition of the platform.

“His tweaked algorithm has aggressively promoted advertisements and reshare accounts, restructured threads to the point that they no longer elevate relevant replies, and has even swapped code to ensure his own posts universally appear at the top of users’ timelines,” Houtailing said.

Highly politicized, highly unsensored content, “the price is right” user verification model, and not being familiar with Twitter/wanting it in the first place are contributing to a crappy X-perience.

Please send help! If you have any recommendations for ways to improve my “X-perience,” let me know in the comments below.

Until next time,

EJ

Benito Antonio MartínezOcasio, also known as Bad Bunny, released “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS,” his latest and sixth studio album on Three Kings Day, a historic and religious holiday for many Latin Americans and Hispanic people around the world. It was his gift to the “niñitos” (little children) as he said in a simple Instagram reel he posted Jan. 5, 2025, announcing the album. This 30-second, amatuer-looking reel paying homage to and highlighting his culture reached over 41 million views in two weeks, and his “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS” album featuring a short film (on Youtube) to set the premise for his passion project reached 1 billion streams in just 13 days, breaking the record for his 2022 album, Un Verano Sin Ti, which reached 1 billion streams in 14 days.

In perspective, “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS” currently ranks with the quickest albums to reach 1 billion streams on Spotify, just behind The Tortured Poets Department in 6 days and Taylor Swift’s Midnights in 10 days. This astounding achievement emphasizes Bad Bunny’s ability to connect with his global audience in ways that very few artists are able, according to Zaria Davis from Where is the Buzz.

At every level, from release to the content of his album, Bad Bunny highlighted his culture and beautifully educated his listeners on the significance of Puerto Rico gaining independence from its colonizers to the impacts of Puerto Rico’s culture suffering from its unbridled gentrification. 

The column article “On Debí Tirar Más Fotos, Bad Bunny Comes Home” by Bianca Betancourt from Harper’s Bazaar, sheds light on the musical and cultural success and phenomenon that is Bad Bunny’s new album. 

This event seemed news worthy because of Bad Bunny’s hands-off approach to promoting his album on social media. Allowing the quality of his passion project to speak for itself, seemed to propel its reach and draw listeners around the world in to the beautiful and rhythmic sounds of Latin America’s music genres, which carries its own unique variation in Puerto Rico.  

“Bad Bunny opted out of flashy promotional tactics for this album run, instead choosing to provide engaging history lessons for his fans,” Betancourt said.

Despite the global audience Bad Bunny’s artistry and personality earned, the release of this album is so notable because of the authentic and personable finesse to the album’s promotion seemed fresh and what made it enticing to go stream. At a time where every social media platform is filled with gimmicks, trends, and curated realities, the strategy Bad Bunny, the brand, used to receive No. 1 mostly non-English-language album of 2025 commands the attention of current influencers and content creators. It certainly commanded the attention of this one (pointing to self).

The album’s songs on YouTube, consist of mini biographies of different symbols and tentpole events of Puerto Rican culture appear as the accompanying art to the songs’ audio. The article addressed how Bad Bunny’s album was a way to archive his island’s cultural nuances and treasures. In addition, it touched on the album being performed and recorded live by students from Puerto Rico’s Libre de Música San Juan rather than a big record label that wouldn’t have captured the heart beat of his lyrics or vulnerability of his lyrics. 

“It’d be an insult to the island of Puerto Rico—and Bad Bunny as an artist—to claim that Un Verano Sin Ti [Bad Bunny’s previous album] was the peak of the island’s musical offerings. Bad Bunny, much like the island he calls home, should never be underestimated. With Debí Tirar Más Fotos, he dives deeper into the traditional sounds and rhythms of Puerto Rico—bomba, plena, salsa, and merengue,” Betancourt said. 

Listen to DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS here

Harper’s Bazaar article 

Welcome to Blogging with EJ!

Hey all!

In an effort to engage more on social media, feel free to leave your comments and feedback on my posts! We can also connect on the following social platforms… 👇🏽

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