Howdy Mycofam,

Today we’re getting an inside peek at the evolution of the inaugural World Mushroom Forum set to take place online from August 21st - 23rd. But first, in the spirit of sharing my journey about what’s working as a mushroom entrepreneur, I want to offer a case study focusing on the power of satire and humor as marketing tools for your mushroom-focused company , project, or initiative.

Not a day goes by when someone with a mushroom business doesn’t reach to to me to ask how they can better get the word out about their products and expand their reach, be it in their local community, at the next level of the industry nationally, or globally to expand into new markets.

Enter meme marketing.

The White House does it. Ryanair does it (exceptionally well). Netflix, Gucci, and Google Maps do it.

And if you’re doing any kind of marketing already, you should consider doing it too.

Why it works: We live in an attention economy where people are chronically online, and leaning into the meme format for promotional work drastically enhances engagement and sharebility

Here are some recent case studies from the Mycopreneur portfolio:

For last week’s Mycopreneur Podcast, a straight-laced promotional post in which I shared a video clip from the session on LinkedIn generated the following reach:

The post drove 1 profile viewer.

Compare this to a satirical meme article I recently shared on LinkedIn:

This latter promotional approach drove 137 profile viewers and netted me 25 new professional contacts.

This approach has shown cross-platform success; similarly on Instagram a recent straight-forward collab post promoting the upcoming World Mushroom Forum generated 3k views and 6 shares on my Instagram profile, including metrics from the other two accounts that collaborated on the post.

Compare this to a meme post I made a week before which has racked up 44,400 views and counting alongside 8,224 shares. In the last week, I’ve gained 200 new followers on IG. Among these new members of the Mycopreneur community have been a number of high profile musicians, filmmakers, and entrepreneurs — going viral works.

It’s the sharebility factor that makes meme marketing so powerful — in another recent campaign I did with Amentara, a satirical / meme style video I made has racked up 10,000 views on IG. Even more, these views are coming from a highly curated audience of mushroom entrepreneurs, enthusiasts, advocates and people who are already interested in potentially purchasing mushroom products.

The secret to meme marketing is that you don’t always need to directly pitch a product or service; simply growing your audience and cultural authority while positioning your brand / brands you’re collaborating with in the middle of the expanding public awareness serves to drive interest and familiarity with their products and services.

The inaugural World Mushroom Forum has dialed in a combo of world-class sponsors & event partners in addition to a growing list of collaborators & applicants

Jump on these now! Pick one up for yourself or consider supporting this work by purchasing a few of them and distributing to your community. The level of actionable insights, deep fungal knowledge, entrepreneurial acumen, and cutting edge info that will be shared by true movers and shakers in the global fungi space at this forum is worth every dollar, pound, yen, and dirham that we’re charging.

We’re delighted to announce Real Mushrooms and Mr. Fungitarian as our first sponsors

We’ll be announcing our next wave of speakers, community & media partners, and sponsors next week — if you’d like to be considered for a speaking opportunity or collaborate as a community partner, media partner, or sponsor, please get your submission in here

The submission deadline to apply to speak is July 15. We got so much interest from legit brands and collaborators right off the bat that we accepted everyone who submitted in the first week as a way of saying thank you for supporting our vision. We’ll have to be more selective moving forward but there are quite a few spots remaining.

Click here add Mycopreneur Incubator to your weekly calendar as a recurring link

Join Zoom Meeting for today
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87575277676?pwd=w5k1GGlfZ22I3SOtolZbZokYnxpUi8.1

PS I wrote another article for High Times this week and a bunch of the people who regularly attend the Mycopreneur Incubator were featured and had their brands linked in it

Thanks for reading the newsletter, see you at the Incubator today

DW