The idea for Cultural Cartography was born in 2019 from an obscure Ted-Talk about understanding culture of cities from local Twitter posts.
Since then, it has become our sample methodology, with 50+ projects across world-wide brands. And it looks like this:
Nothing’s Brand Audience, Scaled by Uniqueness
Cultural Cartography is a way of looking at digital spaces & subcultures that prioritizes interests, affinities and fandoms. It’s the set of methodologies that helps us understand what people care about.
With Cultural Cartography, we’re uncovering way more than interests, themes or top-level personas. We’re diving deep, getting a comprehensive and detailed view of the audience and each of its subcommunities.
This is possible, because we’re working with million of data-points AND leveraging years of digital research experience. Each digital feed and combination of profiles tells a unique story - and we’re able to decode them all.
That’s why, in our reports, you’re learn such things about your chosen audience as:
Their stage of life, wealth & family status
Their politics
The issues they care about
Their favorite content format
Where they get their news
All of their interests and hobbies
What are they nostalgic for
Their health worries and concerns
The types of people they trust
Their faith & beliefs
Their sense of humor
Where they shop
How they make purchase decisions
How they discover new brands/products/content
Their favorite snacks & treats
How they make friends & where they meet
Their taste in music, movies & TV
And so much more….
And we go deep. I.e. We don’t say “They like sweets” - we can understand that they love specifically high-end, expensive, farm-to-table or homemade sweets, often connected to their childhood nostalgia, and eat them specifically as “little luxuries” on special occasions.
Online content is self-curated - people follow and see what interests them, what they want to engage, or what stirs their feelings.
On the other hand, what people see online shapes them. They’re exposed to countless points of view and cultural niches.
That’s why investigating the content an audience consumes is the second-best thing to an honest, in-depth conversation.
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Model of social inlfluence
STEP 1: DEFINE THE AUDIENCE
It all starts with selecting an Audience - people who we want to investigate. We find a group of 100-1000 people that meet certain criteria in their digital profile. For example:
Step 2: Get Affinities
Then, we look at what this Audience follows and sees online!
We get data from social media platforms about what they follow and what’s most likely to appear in their feeds.
This way we’re looking at what the audience actually gets influenced and inspired by.
Step 3: Group and analyze
Lastly, we process this data to see what are the key unifying themes, as well as key subcommunities, across the audience.
Instagram reels
Marketing Research & Strategy
Most of our clients leverage these insights as part of research for new campaigns, launches and activations.
Intimately knowing what your audience sees online helps you meet them where they are and provide content they’ll engage with.
Influencers & Collaborations
Some of our clients leverage our research to find the right influencers or collaborators.
Since we track what a specific audience sees in their feeds, we can find local micro influencers or related businesses that have served as part of incredibly high ROI campaigns.
We use in-house fully automated custom-built tools. We also work with already existing digital data, removing the need for time-consuming participant recruitment.