The 3 Greatest Social Media Marketing Lessons You’ll Ever Need from Emily in Paris
Fact #1: You’re a brand trying to promote your products and services on social media.
Fact #2: Emily in Paris happened.
What do those two facts above mean? It’s simple. It means you have 3 big lessons to learn from Emily in Paris, as follows:
Lesson 1: Speak from facts (and with humility)
Stunned French colleagues: Although Emily slowly adapts, she appears to know it all in the beginning.
Emily speaks confidently, but does she do her research? We’re not sure. Are there scenes of her conducting research or throwing around specific ideas in discussions with her french colleagues? No. How about a social media analytics report? Not in sight. What you’ll see instead is an optimistic and assertive young American telling her new target audience in France what to do, without first trying to understand how the French do things.
Lessons: remain humble and be more open to taking in others’ viewpoints when facing a new audience you are trying to market to, what more when your audience is a totally different culture.
Lesson 2: Connect with others, whoever!
Making friends is easy as pie for Emily.
Thank god Emily does this pretty well. She networks with others, not just her workmates in the classy Savoir office. At some point, you will feel that she flirts around a little too much but her relationships with a nice French girl Camille and a bubbly, not-so-Asian Mindy are still evidence of some effort put into connecting with others in France.
It is these friendships that help the unapologetically American Emily warm up to the modern French culture and to feel at ease, teaching her about the country more than her colleagues ever would. Thus, despite being biased to the American culture at first, learning from her friends helps Emily adapt to her French clients, which is key to succeeding at her marketing work in France.
Lesson: Connect with others, whoever, because just like you didn’t know what big lessons you were going to learn from watching Emily in Paris, you never know what you’ll learn from others, whose experiences are always going to be totally different from yours.
Lesson 3: Being engaging in itself is not enough
The point is that we should work hard to succeed; it’s just that we’re questioning Emily’s portrayal of “working hard in her industry”. In short, you can be an engaging brand but more work is needed to actually succeed.
“Content, trust, interest…engagement!”, Lily Collins declares Emily in the City of Light.
She would be very engaging if she herself was a social media campaign. Not only is she constantly thinking about what to do next as an influencer—but she also speaks her mind to the point where the French people feel slightly frightened of Emily, who lives to work. The thing is, how much is she rewarded for her extroversion, which sometimes comes off as self-absorption? A lot. Despite not sacrificing much (there isn’t much realistic social media marketing work in Emily in Paris), Emily eventually succeeds at her marketing job and wins lovers and friends.
Clearly, her’s is a utopia where everything wonderful comes her way just like that. Don’t get us wrong: Emily believes she is hardworking; it’s just that when you look closer, she really isn’t. She is more compelling than she is hardworking.
Your lesson here: For your brand to be compelling and engaging like Emily, you actually have to work hard to produce quality content and posts. Nothing in life is as easy as what director Darren Star makes it out to be.
Conclusion
What brands can learn from Emily: That it’s crucial to work hard the appropriate (aka traditional) way, assess your social media strategy, and learn from others in a humble manner.
Take your first step in learning more about social media marketing from qualified others by reaching out to us. We’re excited to hear what you have to say about this hit Netflix show (because we want to learn from you too).
The lessons outlined here are timeless. For more questions on how to market your brand on any social media platform, reach out to us.
