Will Threads disrupt the digital public square?
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Welcome to the Most Innovative Companies podcast, where we break down the biggest stories in the world of business and the innovations you need to know about. I'm your host, Yasmin Gagne, joined by my producer, as always, Josh Christensen. Hey, Josh. Hey, Yas. I can hear you today. My ears have popped.

This is a bit of news for people outside of the podcast realm, but I've had terrible allergies because allergies are exploding right now. And my ears were all blocked up for like the past week, but they popped. I went to the urgent care yesterday and got my ear wax.

removed and all this pseudofed. Yeah, it's really gross, but it's amazing. Josh, this sounds like a hygiene problem. Well, everybody has it. Everybody should get their ears cleaned out, but I am an audio professional, so I was very concerned that I couldn't hear. So I have a question for you related to today's episode. Oh, okay. Have you posted on threads yet? I have posted on threads. Really? I have posted one thing on threads about one of our podcasts, and that's about it. Okay.

Damn. I was going to say, I haven't posted yet because I keep getting that notification on Instagram being like, so-and-so is posted on thread, and it's like a murderer's row of uncool people. Yeah, it's not the greatest people in the world. It's like, I mean, again, we talked about the cage fight that's up and coming, which there's some developments there with Zuck and Elon. Oh, the dick measuring contest? Oh, the dick measuring contest. That's awful, but...

Yeah, it's not great people. I was about to be like, that's what I'm interested in, but I'm so not. I'm not interested. Anyway, but

Anyway, before we go on, any housekeeping? We just have one quick reminder to everyone that Fast Company has launched Fast Company Premium. So be sure to subscribe for more exclusive reporting and trend analysis on technology, business, all the great Fast Company work that you love and know and read all the time. You can get more of that on Fast Company Premium and maybe even some upcoming...

extra bits of this podcast as well coming soon hopefully and some writing by Yaz and our friend of the pod who's coming up but I won't

scoop our introduction of him. Later on today's episode, I'll be talking with LCMO Corey Marchisotto about the company's successful social media strategy. But first, we have to talk about the new Twitter on the block, Threads, and here to help me figure out what Mark Zuckerberg's newest platform is, our first repeat guest is Fast Company senior staff editor Max Uffberg. Hey, Max. Friend of the pod. Welcome back, Max. Are you a Threads user? Uh...

I am not a Threads user. There are too many of these competitors. I'm already on like T2, Post, Mastodon. Are you on Blue Sky? I'm on Blue Sky. I'm not posting much on any of these platforms. I'm checking in once a month to see that I've maybe gained one follower to bring my total count to like 16. Yeah. Then I'm checking back out.

Yeah, I'm just, you know, you know what? I'm pretty good at spelling. But every time I type out a tweet and make a spelling mistake, it's just without fail. I don't proofread my tweets enough. You're busy people. You shouldn't be. You've got this podcast. No time.

Yeah. Also, you know how like most journalists follow good scoopy people on Twitter to learn stuff? And I do to some extent, but I follow a lot of like weird cat accounts. I think it's a healthy diet of Twitter media. It's like that in page six. Anyway, Max, first to sort of take us back to the beginning, what is Threads? Well, I'm glad you asked. Yeah.

Threads is a social media app from Meta, which consists of a feed of text-based posts that allow for people to have conversations in real time. So basically, it's a lot like Twitter. So is there drama between Threads and Twitter? Is there like beef between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon beyond their sort of planned cage fight come dick measuring contest?

Twitter actually sued Meta over threads. It's hard to determine whether to take that lawsuit seriously at this point. Twitter's basically claiming that Meta has been engaging in sort of trade secrets by hiring a bunch of ex-Twitter employees to build threads. And Meta says that just didn't happen. But also, aren't they people that Musk fired? Right. That would also potentially be true. But I mean, as far as I know, Meta is just saying they haven't hired anybody who worked at Twitter. No.

No, both companies have a history of dishonesty. So, you know, I mean, Musk has certainly lied one or two times and Meta has Cambridge Analytica. So it's hard to say right now, like who's in the right there. But yeah, it's definitely the rivalry definitely goes beyond just Musk and Zuckerberg wanting to fight each other physically.

What is something around the sort of threads in Twitter drama that you think people are not talking about that you wish they did? Like, you know, if you were, if you had the soul of a poster, you would be like, "No one's talking about this!"

Well, I think there are some underlying differences between threads and Twitter that sort of go undiscussed. Like with threads, for example, you've got a company that has a history of gatekeeping when it comes to data access. So people in academia and the research community are actually pretty concerned that if threads becomes de facto social square, that could severely limit the data they're able to access for their research activities.

And ditto for people who work in sex work and particularly with meta. I mean, meta has come under fire quite a bit in the last few months for banning accounts that don't explicitly violate rules and such. So like Twitter, for whatever its flaws may be, has actually been pretty progressive on that front historically. So that's, I mean, again, like an entire sector that, you know, would be pretty significantly impacted by a moot. Yeah.

It's kind of like Elon blocks his personal enemies, but doesn't really block anything else. Yeah. Why would a user not leave Twitter for threads? Like, is there anything Twitter has that you think threads doesn't? There are a number of features that threads doesn't have yet, at least. Like, you can't DM on threads. There's no web version of threads.

You also can't delete your Threads account right now without also deleting your Instagram. That's a big deterrent for me. Right. That's why I haven't made a Threads. Also, because no one cares. But those are probably all things that will be addressed in some way. There's also, I guess, more significantly, you know, the folks at Meta see Threads as a place that

doesn't explicitly deal with politics. So Adam Masseri, the head of Instagram, said last week that threads wouldn't encourage politics and hard news on its platform. I saw that and that was so crazy to me, actually, because I feel like that's like I go on Twitter to read people's bad opinions about this stuff.

Right. So it'll be interesting to see like that content is not banned, but the algorithms aren't going to promote it. So what sort of stuff is popping up on threads? It's a weird mishmash of like your family's thoughts on things that you don't necessarily want to see. And then like Ellen DeGeneres. Yeah, exactly. Right. Or like I got a ton of sports stuff that comes up on my feed. I'm just a guy. Right.

I'm just a guy. I'm just a man. You know, getting some basketball. What I love about Threads is that it's such a positive place on Twitter. And it's like, dog, it's been two days. Give it two more. Look at Facebook. I mean, this is, again, meta is expanding. Is this a monopoly at this point? How do you define a monopoly at this point? Max is our resident lawyer and trust busting expert.

I am married to a lawyer, so I could say no. I think it's not technically a monopoly, but yeah, they do have this history of basically copying their competitors. I mean, look at Instagram stories. That was just a response to Snapchat, right?

Yeah, everyone's trying to copy TikTok now. Although I feel like Reels is like every time I log on to Instagram, they're like, post a Reel. Please, please post a Reel. No one wants this Reel. Right?

This ended up being the most rapidly downloaded app in history, and Blue Sky seems to have picked up some of its downloads, reportedly reaching a million downloads, a lot of downloads in that sentence, last week. What do you think about that? How do you think the social media landscape is changing? Well, I mean, between Threads and Blue Sky and these 25 other apps, you know, we've got, like you said, we've got T2, Mastodon, Post,

This could be the beginning of a more fractured social media landscape, for better or worse. I don't think we'll continue to see like the days of the true public square, which, you know, Twitter, I think, really was for at least a couple of years there. Like the one thing that I love about Twitter is that we can all unite over like a bad tweet or something stupid. And I will miss that if people leave it.

Yeah. Also, sometimes you'd be like, why is Kevin Durant telling, I don't know, Fareed Zakhar, it's like that, that he disagrees about something. Like, sometimes you have these worlds colliding. That was so cool. And often stupid. Didn't Kevin Durant have like a fake Twitter account? Oh, he sure did. There's a lot of great drama around like a burner account. The Sixers GM also had one.

I think, right? Yeah, that was, uh, Oh, what was his name? I can't remember his name, but he was the, the architect of the process. And then he basically was like sub tweeting through his burner, Joel Embiid. And it was like a whole, I feel like that's also the amazing thing. When you look back on Twitter, it was like, it was actually a really small user base. Like as far as relatively speaking, right. Like as far as like devoted users, it was way smaller than the other networks, but like the GM of the Sixers isn't making fake Facebook accounts. Uh,

They're making fake Twitter accounts. You know, it was like it did feel like even if it wasn't the biggest network, it was just where the like most significant conversations were going on. Have either of you ever had a good not a good just any kind of celebrity interaction on Twitter? Karamo from Queer Eye follows me on Twitter. Whoa. And tweeted back at me. Also, Glenn Greenwald hates me.

But that's pretty much everyone. Did you pick a fight with Glenn Greenwald? He picked a fight with me. It was random. No, you reply guy'd him. I did not reply guy him. No, I tweeted something out. No, I basically subtweeted him. Yeah, I knew it. But he hates me. This was a number of years ago. Anyone else famous people interactions?

Spencer Pratt and I follow each other. No, that's so awesome. Oh my God. Yes. Spencer Pratt and I used to talk on Twitter, like not much. He would like randomly like my tweets, like with stories and stuff. And he and I would. Wait, wait, wait. I need to stop. Who is Spencer Pratt? Is this something? Is this a blind spot? Dude, he's Heidi's terrible boyfriend on the hills now. I think he actually had a lot of self-growth. Don't say that. My close personal friend, Spencer Pratt is actually a pretty good guy.

I feel like this is turning into a wake for Twitter right now, which I guess is probably overdue. I mean, it's not great right now.

So my last question is, what does threads mean for content creators on Instagram? Should threads succeed? And that seems likely. It means Instagram creators are probably going to have to figure out ways to self-promote and engage with fans just using their thoughts, you know, in a text-based format, which is probably easier for some than others. Like,

You know, I've seen some critiques already of threads where it's like, it's like, it'll be like, you know, my fitness influencer saying there are three favorite TV shows to watch. And like, who cares? Yeah. So I think it's going to present like a challenge for some people, but I think, you know, probably others will find that they actually are pretty funny and engaging beyond just the photo video format. I'm here for the cringe. It's like, it sounds. Let's not forget. No, that's true. Social erasure here.

Let me tell you, I had a Parler account. Oh, hell yeah. Yeah, I was like, I was doing a story. It's okay, you're a member of the alt-right. Yeah, exactly. The story was on the Clintons, and so I had to know. Yeah.

But so I did make a parlor account for like this story I was doing on like the far right. And if you start foring us some troubling YouTube videos, I'm going to be very excited. Yeah, I know. All right. We will be back with Max later for Keeping Tabs. But now we're going to take a quick break, followed by my interview with Elf CMO, Corey Marchisotto, about the company's successful social media strategy. And by that, I mean, she's going to tell us why she made a guac themed eyeshadow palette.

I guess to start off, I want to talk a little bit about e.l.f. Beauty's digital presence. So I know the brand has had a digital presence for a really long time, but I feel like in the past...

I don't know, three years, four years, it's really exploded, at least on my personal TikTok and Instagram feed. Tell me about your approach to that. Powering digital is one of our strategic imperatives. In 2004, the year Elf was born, Elf was born to disrupt. It's in our DNA. Our founders gave us the spirit and the thirst for disruption by being a digitally native company, selling premium cosmetics,

for $1 over the internet in 2004. And for context for the audience, in 2004, Facebook had just launched and the iPhone doesn't yet exist. Everybody thought it was impossible to sell premium color cosmetics for $1.

Lucky for us, our founders charged forward with a bulldozer mentality and captured a white space opportunity that they saw in front of them. We continue to water those roots of disruption for the last 19 years. And that means being digital first. That means partnering with platforms like TikTok when they burst onto the scene. That means being the first company in beauty to enter Be Real. It means launching a

a channel on Twitch before any other beauty company even know what that is or what that means. Now, when I think of e.l.f. Beauty's digital presence, I think of viral products. You know, I'm thinking of your Halo Glow primer, you know, that went crazy and is still sold out in some Target's.

I am curious how having viral products affects e.l.f. Beauty's supply chain. How do you manage that? In the era of TikTok, I would say we need to have both empathy and compassion for our supply chain team. Whenever I see a supply chain person, I give them a hug and thank them for what they do because they're working overtime.

Because the truth is you can't forecast virality. And we've seen this happen in two different ways. We see it happen in existing products. What's an example of a product that went viral that's been around for a long time? We had our Hydrating Core Lip Shine in a plum color that went viral on TikTok. We had our Peeling Exfoliant, which is a great product, had a steady effect.

state of performance until which time it went viral on TikTok and then it hit a massive peak. We've seen that with our lip exfoliators that were around for a long time. And then all of a sudden we were seeing triple digit growth. And usually when we go under the hood, we see, okay, there's a TikTok behind that. So there's definitely the learning process that's happening where we have to be able to

understand what is making this product have this accelerated pace of growth. And then is it momentary or is it going to sustain over time? So our supply chain team has gotten much better at

Almost like training an algorithm, right? To understand how to lean into the moment and then how to make sure that you plan for whatever the next steps could potentially be from there. And then the other place that we see that happen is obviously on new product. When you have a viral product that ends up being sold out, say, for a long amount of time, how do you communicate with consumers? How do you manage that relationship?

We have an extraordinary consumer relations team who wake up every day with a passion for serving our community with a warm hug and a big heart. They are incredibly vocal. They get very upset when we stock out. We put a...

on our website where they can sign up for information as soon as the product is back in stock so that we have direct notification. And we make sure that we utilize all of our channels for conversations

constant flow of communication. There's constant DMing going on all day, every day with our community managers and our community across all our different social platforms. In fact, I was just in the UK last week and I was standing at a

back wall where our products are sold in one of the leading retailers there. And somebody had come over, it was her lunch break and she was looking for her shade of halo glow. And she said she comes every day at her lunch break. Cause she knows as soon as it comes in stock, it's going to go out of stock. She's literally that committed.

to getting her shade of halo glue that she comes every day. I hope you sent her a free one. That's commitment. Those are the consumers you want to keep happy. Definitely a super fan. I know that just now you basically said, we don't set out to go viral. We make

You know, great products and we're digitally native, so that's what happens. But you did hire one of the most viral people ever, who I'm obsessed with, Jennifer Coolidge, to be in your Super Bowl ad. We did. Tell me about how you pick creators and influencers to work with and what those relationships are like. So...

We like to work with like-minded creators, kindred spirits, as we like to call them, who share our values. And Jennifer Coolidge loves that Elf is vegan and cruelty-free. She also loves that we make this incredible premium quality at affordable prices. Jennifer knew Halo Glow and Power Grip Primer before she got the phone call to come work with Elf.

The brand was introduced to her by her social media manager, who's an elf super fan, who found us on TikTok four years ago and has actually been communicating the elf values to the Jennifer Coolidge universe over time. So when the phone call came in, she was like, elf? I love elf.

you know, knew exactly who we were, what we stood for. And that was a really important part of why she wanted to be part of our brand. And,

And I would say that story is exactly how we work with everybody else in our orbit. Elf has collaborated with Dunkin' Donuts. It's also collaborated with Chipotle. In addition to sort of more standard influencers, I'm thinking of Jen Atkin, this famous hair person. What is your strategy for finding the right collaborators? Walk us through like an Elf and Chipotle collaboration. Sure.

So at the early stages of TikTok, a lot of brands were sitting on the sidelines waiting to figure out what were the KPIs? What is the perfect strategy? How do we figure out how to enter into this space? And we were already plunged into the deep end. And so did Chipotle. So when all of the articles were coming out in those early stages around TikTok, it

you constantly would hear and read TikTok, Elf Chipotle, TikTok, Elf Chipotle. And one day I woke up, I got in the shower like I normally do. And in my head, it was ringing TikTok, Elf Chipotle, TikTok, Elf Chipotle. And literally we called them up and said, hey, you guys are digital disruptors. We're digital disruptors. We're both making hay of TikTok. Maybe there's something that we could do here. Let's meet and see if

there's a there there and we met with them and we realized that we were

mirror images of each other. We cared about the same things. Our values were totally aligned. And we tuned into both of our audiences to see if there were insights that would help us build a very relevant and resonant collection. They had this insight in their house that people would walk into a Chipotle restaurant and when they would go up to the line and choose, do I want guacamole? Do I want black beans? Do I want tomatoes? That

that they would actually comment that the colors were so beautiful it should be an eyeshadow palette. I don't think guac green eyeshadow is on the cards for me. Well, it was definitely on the cards for both of our communities who clamored for the collection, and it was an absolute blast.

incredible moment for both of our brands. And I think this idea of two like-minded spirits from two different industries coming together to do something that resonates

deeply and meaningfully with the community is what makes these collaborations a success. Elf has been doing collaborations for a long time, and I've remembered them over the past several years. But these days, it seems like every brand is pursuing collaborations, like truly Adidas and SpongeBob, Reebok and...

Charles Eames, the architect. Do you ever worry about collaboration fatigue? I think if you are truly tapped into your audience and you're serving something up based on an insight, then the fatigue won't set in. The reason that we came together with Jennifer Coolidge, it's because our community was creating absolutely hilarious videos around the sticky quotient and the entertainment value of the stickiness of our PowerGrip primer. Mm-hmm.

And we thought to ourselves, well, who could actually bring this comedic value, this entertainment value of the sticky factor to light who has incredible affinity with Gen Z as well as universal appeal? And obviously the brightest star in the sky at that moment was Jennifer Coolidge. At that moment and forever. And forever and ever and ever. Yeah.

I want to ask you about two things as they relate to that. The first is Elf has done an incredibly good job talking to Gen Z and younger consumers. I'm curious how you kind of pursue that, what kind of tone you adopt, whether this was a sort of

plan strategy or something that happened more organically. And then two, I know what you're going to tell me, which is that you have never tried to make a dupe in your life, but Elf is known for dupes. And I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about that. With Gen Z in particular, it's about creating an orbit that they want to be a part of. We actually care about

about what they care about. We stand for positivity, inclusivity, accessibility. We know that they actually vote with their wallet and are looking behind the product to see who are the people in the boardrooms, who are the people actually making these products, what are the values that they stand for. And when they go under the hood on Elf, they find people who look just like them. We also go where they go.

We entered into TikTok because they were calling for us. There was a hashtag that we did not create for e.l.f. Cosmetics that had over three and a half million views at the time, which was calling for us to have a presence on the platform. They are also really appreciative of the fact that we make high quality premium cosmetics available at accessible price points.

And that has won the hearts and minds of not only Gen Z, but also a much wider audience. So that takes me to your second question. You call them dupes. I call it strategic innovation. And we are strategically innovating to meet evolving needs states. Our community is incredibly vocal. I get on TikTok lives with them and ask them what they want to see from us.

They specifically ask us to make things that are inaccessible to them because the price is so out of reach. And in order to meet those wants and desires of a fast-growing community, we have to match that with an incredible team of chemists, of innovators, of research and development,

I like to say that our innovation department is run by an alchemist and a rocket scientist. And if you listen to our community, they'll tell you that Elf is actually better than Prestige. And people can't see me, but I'm making air quotes because I'm actually quoting the community who says better than Prestige. And that is very hard to do at our price point.

So my last question is actually broadly about the state of the beauty market. So beauty as a consumer space has grown a crazy amount over the past few years. And it's kind of showing no signs of stopping. And we've seen a lot of companies expanded to do new categories. Elf, for instance, expanded into sun care. We've had other companies start releasing supplements. I guess I'm curious just broadly about

When you think about the beauty industry and where it's going, what are we going to see more of? What are the big top line trends? The...

Consumers continue to evolve at a rapid pace and their need states are evolving over time and beauty brands need to evolve with those need states. So one of the things that is fundamental is hybrids. So if you think about, you mentioned our new sun touchable range, we're not only known for primers, but we also have a lot of requests coming into our community.

innovation team for SPF. So we said, well, what if we make them an incredible primer with an SPF? And that's how we came up with Wogo. So

We call that the skinification of makeup, if you will, taking color cosmetics, fuses and adding skincare benefits to it. I think anything right now that we see as black and white is going to become increasingly blurry. We see that happening at the bridge of beauty and wellness. So that's why we created Key Soul Care, for example, which is not just about topically caring for your skin or helping you achieve a certain look, but also caring for your

for your soul and recognizing that there is an emotional state and an emotional need that beauty delivers. Thank you so much, Corey, for taking the time to chat with us. Thank you for having me. I appreciate being here and thank you to the audience for tuning in.

Okay, we're back with Max. It's time to wrap up the show with Keeping Tabs. This is where each of us shares a story, trend, or company we're following right now. And Max, since you're our guest, what are you keeping tabs on? I have been keeping tabs on Utah Governor Spencer Cox.

who said this week that he's getting ready to sue social media companies for the harm caused to the state's young people. He already signed legislation this year which limits how minors use social media. And so the new laws, which I think go into effect next year, will set a digital curfew on social media users who are minors. And it'll require minors to get parental consent to sign up for accounts. So like no idea how they're going to actually implement that.

I was going to say, miners will find a way around that. Josh, what are you keeping tabs on? Because in this document, it just says the world is burning. Well, the world is burning, Yaz. And it's the trend that is really, this has unfortunately become an evergreen trend. But like, yet again, it seems like every summer, every hurricane season, a few times a year, we blip up with extreme weather events. Right now, there was massive flooding in New York over the weekend. There was...

not was there currently is massive heat waves going across the south I need to have less depressing keeping taps but essentially the extreme weather events are again piling up

and they will only continue to increase in intensity. I think the only way out of the mess that we're in right now is the diligent incremental steps of carbon offsetting and going to net zero emissions and afforestation, reforestation. But I think there needs to be a technological solution. So anyways, carbon capture would be great. A lot of depressing weather news this week. But

maybe for something a little cheerier. Yaz, what's your keeping tabs? On Friday, I went to see the new Indiana Jones movie with my co-editor, David Salazar, friend of the pod. We were both talking about the fact that they de-aged Harrison Ford in the opening sequence.

I don't think he needs de-aging. That man looks great. Still looks great. How did you feel about the de-aging? Did you think it was... No, it was kind of glitchy, but it was also pretty good. Better or worse than the Irishman? I think it was better. It was so much better. Well, like better technically. The Irishman was a more fun de-aging process. They had the craziest faces to work with in the Irishman. They really were wild. Like Al Pacino looked so insane. Also, if you do anything... The palette you're starting with.

Yeah, exactly. You're like, make Joe Pesci do anything. It's just funny. Yeah.

You don't need to de-age Joe Pesci. He looks the same now as he did in Home Alone 1 and 2. I mean, this movie more so than other movies has made me really sad for like all these older actors. I mean, not sad because they get paid, but like all these older actors, they're trotting out to de-age for beloved franchises. And it's just like, we have no real movie stars except for them. So we keep using them. And I...

I am apprehensive about seeing more of that. Do you think we're going to see another Indiana Jones with Harrison Ford when he's like 90? They said it's the last one. Did they say it's the last one? I don't know because I thought the last one was going to be the last one because they set it up so that Shia LaBeouf would take over. Oh, that was a bad call there. I know. Only if Shia LaBeouf was Indiana Jones as his Even Stevens character would I watch that.

As Lewis. And his sidekick was beans. That's it for Most Innovative Companies. Max, thank you for joining us again. Thanks for having me, as always. Our show is produced by Avery Miles, Blake Odom, and with additional support by our intern, Mariam Kiparidze. Mix and sound design by Tad Wadhams, and our executive producer is Josh Christensen. Remember again to subscribe, rate, and review, and we'll see you next week.