The Future of Social Media, According to Coco Mocoe

Coco Mocoe can predict the future—of social media.

By becoming an expert in social media strategy, Coco has build a personal brand for herself around forecasting trends and developing a long-term approach to content marketing. From analyses on the rise of Mr Beast and Brittany Broski to breakdowns of viral trends like the GRWM, Coco can tell you what’s going to be popular and why—and how you as a creator can use it to your advantage.

Coco always thought her role would be on the sidelines but has skyrocketed on her own channels over the past few years. She is now playing the long game. She recently was verified on TikTok and explained in an emotional video to fans what it meant to her to keep pursuing what she loves.

Now, she has the perspective to take a hard look at social media platforms like TikTok and truly understand their strengths and weaknesses—and share these insights with other creators. She’s also making space for even more nuanced conversations on her podcast, *Ahead of the Curve.*

Beacons was so lucky to chat with Coco on all of these topics, including highly tactical ways for creators to build value in their brands and make themselves bigger than their platforms. Here’s what she has to say.

On her creator journey: “I just had to keep showing up”

Kaitlin (Beacons): What inspired you to start making content?

Coco Mocoe: It really came from a love for the craft. I have always been interested in content creation, trends, and marketing, but I felt like my role would always be more on the sidelines.

I studied marketing at school, and earlier in my career I worked at BuzzFeed as a social producer and advised brands on how to grow. My role in the space was very much as a strategic consultant.

Then, for fun, I started doing tarot readings on TikTok in November of 2020. It was fun but it was just a hobby and didn’t really get any traction.

I took a break from TikTok for a few months, and then started creating content again in late August about trends I was seeing on TikTok around content creation. At that time, “trend forecasting” was a new concept and something that I was figuring out as I was going.

KM: How did you become interested in social media trends and the creator economy space?

CM: It was spillover from my 9-5 job. A lot of people might not know this about me, but earlier in my career I worked at Famous Birthdays. So yes—I have a Famous Birthdays page!

Beginning in 2019, I ran the TikTok there for a year and started learning about what content was performing, how trends played a role, and started studying how the space was evolving.

KM: What do you think has been most important to your content creator journey?

CM: The thing that has been most important for me is to just keep showing up. Consistency is absolutely key in anything, but especially when you’re trying to grow a brand online.

This has always been part of my mindset. I grew up doing competitive sports—I think that is what helped shape these ideas of practice, consistency, and hard work being the keys to success.

It affects everything about how I work now. My TikTok career only took off because I kept at it and tried something new—I just kept showing up. Even now when I hire people for my team, I always want to hire the person that works the hardest.

Consistency and hard work are what you have the most control over. Your biggest win could come after a slow period. You could have 99 videos that don’t get any traction and the 100th video blows up. If you stopped at the 99th, you’d never know what you missed out on.

You could have 99 videos that don’t get any traction and the 100th video blows up. If you stopped at the 99th, you’d never know what you missed out on.

On the creator economy: “Shorter content has less object permanence”

KM: How have you seen the creator space change since you started studying trends and making content?

CM: There is a lot of hype around TikTok that has obviously grown so much since 2020. But the thing about TikTok is that there is no object permanence. The content is, by design, very ephemeral in nature. This is both a good thing and a bad thing.

The thing about TikTok is that there is no object permanence. The content is, by design, very ephemeral in nature. This is both a good thing and a bad thing.

There’s no doubt that TikTok is an amazing search engine and can launch a creator’s career. Short form content is great for exposure, but it’s not where you’re going to build a community. The shorter the video, the less object permanence there is, so viewers are less likely to remember any one video. As quickly as their attention is caught, it can shift away again.

I see a lot of creators putting all of their eggs in one basket [on TikTok] and not investing in other platforms or forms of community. I think this is dangerous because at the end of the day, none of the apps owe us anything.

For the long term and going forward, I think longer form content and diversification over your platforms is going to be really important for creators who want to own their audience independently of any one platform—particularly TikTok.

KM: What is something that you think will be an evergreen best practice for creators?

CM: Ritualize yourself with a daily routine. I recently read Atomic Habits and became really interested in the idea of habit stacking, which is when you identify a habit that you already do every day and then stack your new behavior on top. It’s a great way to create rituals and build a routine that becomes sticky, because it’s already connected to pieces of your existing routine.

One funny thing that comes to mind when I think about best practices and evergreen content is the song “Friday” by Rebecca Black. Everyone made fun of that song when it came out, but I think she was really smart. She anchored her song to a recurring concept—the idea of excited that it’s Friday, which is something that nearly everyone experiences every single week. She essentially stacked the exposure for her song on top of a feeling everyone already had on a recurring basis, which brought attention back to her song over and over again.

I think the point here is that in addition to building a routine for yourself, you also want to find a way to ritualize your content with your followers. You want to be bigger than a platform. You want your followers to expect and look forward to your content on a regular cadence, and miss you when you’re gone.

You want to be bigger than a platform. You want your followers to expect and look forward to your content on a regular cadence, and miss you when you’re gone.

KM: Where do you find the best advice for creators?

CM: Definitely Colin and Samir! I am obsessed with them. One of my favorite pieces of advice from them is to think of your platform more like a group chat, and not a performance. This creates less pressure and also makes your content more authentic and genuinely engaging, because followers want to talk to you like a friend.

Something I’d love to see more from their content is more diversity around women creators.

On advice for creators: “I recommend the mad lib effect”

KM: How can creators increase their value to brands and position themselves well to get brand deals?

CM: There’s something I recommend to creators here that I call the mad lib effect.

The mad lib effect is this: Come up with a format that you love that you can prove resonates with your audience. Maybe this is a certain type of video like a get ready with me, a haul, a review, a stunt, etc. Then, when you pitch a brand, show how you can plug that brand into this content format that already performs well—like plugging the brand into a mad libs sentence. This way, when you’re trying to sell to a brand, you can sell them on a format that is tired a true.

There a few things to consider here—you have to make it unique and authentic to you. I define authenticity as doing something whether you were filming or not. This means that you don’t necessarily have to follow trends if they don’t resonate with you. People aren’t going to follow you unless you’re doing something they can’t get anywhere else.

Come up with a format that you can prove resonates with your audience. Then, show how you can plug the brand you're pitching into your content format.

On upcoming projects: “My podcast is a place for more nuance”

KM: Right now, what are you most excited about?

CM: My podcast! It’s called Ahead of the Curve, which is a tagline I have used before in videos.

The idea for the podcast came from wanting to create more long form content about these topics that I love—marketing, content, and internet trends. I want it to be valuable to a wide audience, because I think that anyone who has a phone and a wifi connection sees themself as a potential content creator and could be looking for guidance.

I want this platform to help me create something that is bigger than social media—one of my taglines for the podcast is “remembering the humans behind the handles.” This partially came from wanting a place for more nuance to combat mean comments that don’t show any empathy or understanding. On social media, I think a lot of things can be taken as black and white, so I wanted a space for the gray to have more interesting discussions.

With this podcast, I’m most exciting about diving deeper into trend predictions, pop culture, and have a space to interview big creators that I really look up to.

KM: What are your goals for the next 6 months?

CM: My podcast is my baby right now! I’m so excited about it and my goals right now are all about growing it and improving.

I absolutely love getting to talk to people, and this podcast gives me a huge opportunity to do that. I’m excited to bring interesting people on the show to have conversations with, and ultimately to go on tour and have more conversations in person with my audience about the topics they are passionate about, too.