Rachel Karten knows what makes the internet tick. She is the person marketers, editors, and brands text (if they’re lucky!) when they want to know what actually works on social media. Rachel is the rare and lethal combination of smart, creative, and instinctual. Want to make your social fun and effective? Karten has all the answers.
She got her start leading the social teams at Bon Appétit and Epicurious, where she won a Webby award and a National Magazine Award for social. These days, she writes Link In Bio, a must-read newsletter about all things social media, and consults for brands like CAVA, Google, and more. We called up Rachel to talk about the halcyon days of social media (Valencia filter on everything), yet another pivot to video, and whether or not people actually use Threads.
Three Point Four Media: What would you do with a week free from social media?
Rachel Karten: I’ve done that! I drove the California coast and knit a hat. I do things with my hands because that’s what is usually busy holding a phone.
When you go on vacation do you delete socials from your phone?
I don’t delete socials, but I turn off push notifications so I’m not seeing alerts. Also, I enjoy posting on social media about things like going on vacation. It doesn’t always feel like work for me. I don’t doomscroll on vacation.
What early-era social media tropes do you miss, like celebrity dog accounts?
I miss the mundane, like Sad Desk Lunch. I really do miss the Valencia filter on my lunch! We’re all so addicted to the algorithm it would never work anymore.
Why won’t that work anymore? The algorithm won’t spit it out?
The algorithm won’t spit it out unless you’re Martha Stewart. It’s fun that she posts in a way that’s so clearly her, so there’s the tension of a celebrity posting like a normal person. But for the average person it’s not going to capture the eyeballs these platforms need.
Social media is video now, and you need a video plan full stop.
You’re over 100,000 subscribers now. How has the amount of time you’ve put into the newsletter changed as your audience grew?
When I started my newsletter, I treated it like my full-time job. I was consistent. I reported things out as if it was the only thing going on.
The first two years of Link In Bio, my entire income came from consulting work. I wrote the newsletter on the weekends. I wrote it at night. The biggest thing is not even necessarily the amount of work, but it’s when in the day I would work on it. Now, I can wake up and work on it. My work went from majority consulting to majority newsletter.
How do you decide what goes behind the paywall for Link In Bio?
I send two newsletters a week: One on Tuesday, one on Thursday. The Tuesday newsletter is for the person who’s at a brand who has a brainstorm later that day. What can I provide them that’s going to make them immediately better at their job? That is my paywall because that is my expertise in the field. The Thursday newsletter is an interview. I keep the interviews free.
The reason I started the newsletter was to show social media is hard, interesting work. I want those interviews and that knowledge to feel accessible to anyone. If I’m writing about Zohran Mamdani’s video strategy, that’s a universal thing that a social person might be interested in, or somebody who’s into politics, or somebody who lives in New York. It feels important to keep that open and free.
Consulting makes me a better writer. It helps me understand the social media ecosystem.
We don’t do a ton of social work, but I find the newsletter really fascinating and relevant to our work at Three Point Four. Is there a pretty good mix in your audience?
I hear all the time, “I don’t work in social, but this is fascinating.” I like that. When I’m thinking of stories to write, there is a social angle to everything. If social is just the way in, you might find it really interesting for other reasons.
I had a dispatch from the head of social for the Philadelphia Eagles. She broke down what it was like working for the Eagles the day they won the Super Bowl. That’s a human interest story. While telling that human interest story, I’m still able to tell the story that social media is not just the intern posting. “Look at how talented this person is!” That’s always what I want people to come away with.
Would you prefer the newsletter is the only thing you do, or does consulting work help shape the newsletter?
I say—and now it will be on the record—that I always want to consult. Consulting makes me a better writer. It helps me understand the social media ecosystem. It shows up in the newsletter, although maybe not in as direct of a way as one might imagine.
What does that consulting look like? Are you doing social strategy? Execution? Are your days managing social accounts behind you?
I pitch post ideas, work on campaign rollouts, and guide overall strategy. I’m still working on things that show up in the feed. I’m not pressing post anymore, but I was doing that for clients not so long ago. And that’s not to say I’m above ever doing it again. That’s the best part of working in social! I hear from a lot of social directors who tell me, “I’m just a manager now, I miss being in the weeds, I miss coming up with that weird video idea.”
The best brands are not using their social to tell every story they possibly can. They're telling one story really well over and over and over again in a really entertaining way.
How much social and strategy work is contract these days?
There are still lots of great in-house jobs. A lot of agencies and brands have great social teams, but maybe don’t have the video team to execute on what is now becoming another pivot to video. There are some really great social video freelancers who are probably very busy right now.
Tell me about this new pivot to video. What’s it look like?
[Laughs] The way that algorithms work now, serialized video content does well. Instagram is testing Reels as the homepage. There are a lot of clues that video is becoming what social media is at this point. Social media is video now, and you need a video plan full stop.
Is that why I see so many videos from random marketing talking heads anytime I log on LinkedIn?
Yes! The platforms incentivize it. They’re pulling the strings. That’s not an accident that’s happening.
Do brands have a choice? Or can companies consciously say, we’re not going to do this?
With LinkedIn, you can still say you’re not going to do it. Soon, maybe not! With Instagram, I cannot think of a fast-growing account this year that does not post video. Whereas with LinkedIn, there are brands that post just words. And Threads! People are on Threads...
People do use it?
People use Threads. They do.
For what? I feel like an old person every time Instagram tries to send me there. I feel so unmoored.
Threads is good for fandoms, TV show discussion, and sports talk. When I log on there, it always feels like there are five topics that it’s serving me posts about. If your brand is in any of those conversations at a given time, it can be a good place.
What are your favorite brand accounts doing right now?
The best brands are not using their social to tell every story they possibly can. They’re telling one story really well over and over and over again in a really entertaining way. I talk about them all the time, but Craighill is one of my favorite brands on social. They are doing these amazing industrial design breakdowns of their products told in a really universal way that would make anyone interested in industrial design.
They’re not trying to post their product photo or let me know when there’s a sale. They’re just using social in this “top of funnel let’s get people in the door through amazing storytelling” way. We come from an era where the Instagram feed was where we talked about everything. The best brands right now are very focused and using social in a very deliberate way.
Does the “just have the intern post it” myth still persist?
Internally, marketing leadership understands the value of social 100% now. When I first started, somebody would comment, “What intern posted this?” and it would stay there. Whereas now when somebody does that, your commenters will go to bat for you. There is a discourse in the comments now.
thank you for having me!
Epic interview