For my Blog Project, I have chosen to follow the company Slim Jim because I am a fan of their company and products. They have good marketing strategies like commercials and ads featuring famous people such as Randy Savage to grow the brand. But perhaps the most interesting marketing campaign is their Instagram account. Since their target audience is 18-29 years old’s, Slim Jim created what is essentially a meme page to connect with their younger audience. Not only have they created a place to post funny meat-related pictures, but they have created an entire culture revolving around the Slim Jim. Calling themselves the “Long Boi Gang,” nearly 1.3 million followers of the brand are made to be ambassadors of the gang. these loyal followers, which include other successful meme pages, assumedly horizontally integrate their followers between their accounts. The page Admin also does a good job keeping up on commenting back to fans and other popular pages. They post nearly every day but were notably absent this past weekend.
09/26/2021
Slim Jim this week has been continuing their streak of abstract but effective marketing through Gen Z humor. This week on Instagram, the Administrator of the account took a lot of time re-posting their followers’ stories that include Slim Jims. This is smart because the followers are basically marketing the product for them in exchange for a shoutout on the official Slim Jim account. The Admin gets content to post that markets the product to all of their followers, and the people posting for the shout-out are marketing to everyone that they follow. I read online that in 2019, their following went from around 5000 to 500,000 people because a Slim Jim superfan begged to market for them. His results clearly have paid off because, with these tactics, millions of people now see their product. In addition to a genius marketing move, the account continued with its silly inside humor with the Long Boi Gang. Most of the posts are either meat-related dirty jokes or images that fans could make (meaning it doesn’t have a cooperate tone). Below is their last post. The top half is full of inside jokes from the account and terrible Gen Z humor, the bottom half is an old meme, “task failed successfully,” that people who are on social media have seen before, making the post nostalgic in a sense and New in another sense, all while marketing the product. Well Played Slim Jim.
10/03/2021
This week in the madness of Slim Jim, there really hasn’t been much change. There was only one post that pictured a Slim Jim, and the rest of them were just memes that barely included or didn’t include Slim Jim imagery. Some of them were very funny though. The Admin also hopped on the trend of October (aka “Spooky Season”) by teasing a face reveal to his followers and letting them know that he is excited to make spooky memes for his followers. Other than that, there isn’t much to report on from Slim Jim. But I did find something else interesting when searching for the main account. Apparently, there is also a new account called “SlimJimCanada” that markets to Canadians. it appears to be in its early stages of social media, and its meager 1700 followers mean it cannot receive a blue checkmark on the account, meaning that they are verified to be who they say they are. But I believe it is the Canadian branch of Slim Jim marketing because it has a very similar setup in their bio compared to the American account. They also have the same inside jokes and humor as the original account, and the original account also follows them, meaning they support the page. Though they have similarities, like calling themselves “Long Boi Gang,” their advertising approach is somewhat different. Their humor is less abstract, dark, and dirty, and they actually post advertisements. These advertisements include a tasteful photo of a Slim Jim and the captions are catchphrases you would hear in commercials like “Tame your hunger on the go!” which the American account wouldn’t be caught dead doing. Maybe Canadians don’t like our humor, or maybe the Canadian administrator isn’t as creative. But I’ll certainly follow both accounts to see how they market to different populations.
10/10/2021
This week in the Slim Jim chronicles, there really hasn’t been much change. Meme after meme of talentless humor makes me chuckle every time. During the week, there was a media blackout, and all Facebook-owned sites were down for around 6 hours. The Slim Jim account capitalized on this with a few fresh memes about the blackout as soon as he could post it. I also learned that “He,” the account administrator, is called Any Heines. There was also the surfacing of a new inside joke as far as I’ve seen on the account. The joke is a play on words that is related to their product. The meme template is having “Commeatment” issues. I can’t really explain it other than that and I can’t get photos to show up on this site, so hopefully, I’ll be able to share it at some point. The account also crossed an important milestone in its career; it posted its 1069’th post. This normally isn’t a big deal to literally every other account, but Slim Jim’s 7th-grade humor celebrated, as did everyone in the comments.
10/17/2021
Dwane “The Rock” Johnson once said, “Success isn’t always about greatness, it’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come.” I really felt that, and I believe the slim jim account administrator feels it too. This week, the tried and true formula continues. Slim Jim posted some more meat and sex-related memes. His most recent post was simply “Christmas is exactly 69 days away from today.” Not even meat-related, just a poor joke. But the Admin knows what he does is successful, and one of his posts even comments on it. It was a two-paneled picture, and the gist of it is that no one supported him when he was starting out on the account (not even involved with the company at the time) but now he receives a ton of praise from his 1.3 million Long Boi Gang members and from the jerky giant itself. I’m happy he can rub it in the face of his family and friends, I hope he relishes it. Something actually applicable to the business also happened. The account announced a limited-time “merch drop,” and it appears they are selling hats and tee shirts. They are of course absolutely hilarious, and I’m thinking of buying one. I’m curious whether Slim Jim takes a percentage of profits for using their name for a limited offer to Instagram followers. Since it’s illegal to do without their permission, I assume Slim Jim either takes a percentage of merchandise profit or the Instagram Admin owns his own merchandise through a contractual obligation.
10/31/2021
This week, the Slim Jim admin did something never before seen. Just kidding, he posted Halloween-themed content like the rest of the internet. Putting the Long Boi spin on things, the meme posts were jokes like “Trick or Meat” and the creation of a spooky character called “The Slim Reaper” that has a Slim Jim for a face. The Admin also commented back to many people who said happy Halloween, replying with something like “I love you all, no tricks, just meat.” It was nice to see so many people commenting and being replied to. There is clearly an insider community of followers who are very friendly and cheerful towards one another. This is very different from most communities on the internet who are rife with slurs and toxic behavior. Good for Slim Jim to corner the market on nice people.
11/07/2021
For the first time in a while, the Slim Jim admin posted one meme a day every day this week. There wasn’t anything special to report. I really don’t know what to write anymore, but they were funny. The account was sort of bragging that they technically have the “biggest gang in the world.” meaning the long boi gang. I looked it up, and it appears to be true, the second biggest gang, the Yakuza, has only 83,000 members compared to the Long Boi gang that is 1.3M strong. If the entire Long Boi gang were to go to war with the Yakuza, they would win from sheer numbers. They could stop organized crime while promoting their brand and networking with powerful leaders.
11/14/2021
This week I have learned horrible news. The original creator of the Slim Jim Instagram, Andy Heines, died in May of 2020. The account at the time had 949,000 followers, and it’s upsetting that he didn’t get to see 1 million. I scrolled back to May 9th, the day after he died, and there was a fairly tasteful post about his passing with a picture of him looking fresh as hell. And while I was looking at this and contemplating my own mortality, I had an epiphany. What I thought was repetitive content of a burnt-out meme creator that has been roped into the business world was actually just lazy meme creation. The posts are funny but incredibly repetitive, as I have begun to realize more and more. Looking through older posts, there was a lot more diversity in the jokes and content, making me feel that Andy really tried. I now feel that the new admin does not have the same devotion to the Long Boi Gang as Andy did, and that’s kind of disrespectful. So I’m calling the new guy a sellout. Andy Leaves behind two children and a wife. Hopefully, one or both of those children can take back the account and post fresh content that both honors their father and seeks to take the content to the next level. This project is now dedicated to Andy. RIP brother.
11/29/2021
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