how brands can build cult followings in 2026
Alex Garcia
113,103 views
organic social is more important than ever. it's not only important for discovery but for creating cult-like affinity.
in this video I'm going to walk you through how your brand can create social strategy that helps you build a cult like fan base.
if you're a sports, performance, or lifestyle brand doing over $10m and want to work with us then you can apply here: https://bit.ly/4i31gye
I share a lot more content like this on ig: Instagram: alexgarcia_atx
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how brands can build cult followings in 2026
Alex Garcia
113,103 views
organic social is more important than ever. it's not only important for discovery but for creating cult-like affinity.
in this video I'm going to walk you through how your brand can create social strategy that helps you build a cult like fan base.
if you're a sports, performance, or lifestyle brand doing over $10m and want to work with us then you can apply here: https://bit.ly/4i31gye
I share a lot more content like this on ig: Instagram: alexgarcia_atx
1. Narrative Building, the overarching narrative.
Think Nike with "Just Do It" or Represent with "on a mission" or BPN with "Go one more"
The reason this is important is because you have to create filters and feelings for all of your content and make sure that content amplifies a narrative and makes that narrative bigger in a consumer's mind.
2 questions to find the narrative:
1. What do I stand for or represent in 3 words?
2. How does someone feel after consuming my content?
2. Your Mission
Example from Nike, bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete.
A good mission is about the person that you want to inspire, motivate, educate and bring value to.
There needs to be an internal mission and external mission.
The internal mission is the mission that the employees, the people building the brand, are rallying behind.
The external mission is what the consumers, the people buying the product, the people believing in you, the people consuming the content, need to be able to rally behind.
3. Establish The Enemy
Example would be Mac vs PC
Enemy Framework:
-Understand who the enemy is
-Put the enemy in your content
-Get your army to rally behind you
The more your enemy prevents your mission from becoming a reality, the more people will buy into your mission.
4 Things to Position Against:
-1. Action
-2. Product/Item
-3. Corporation/Business
-4. Version of Yourself
4. Characters
Examples, Steve Jobs and Apple, Elon Musk and Tesla
Potential Characters:
-Founder
-Employees
-Ambassadors
-Influencers
-Athletes
-Customers/Users
5. Pillars and Purpose
What are the pillars for each part of the content funnel?
The most important aspect is attaching a content pillar to a purpose.
The goal is to establish a content pillar, then match every single pillar that you're creating, back to a purpose that you understand.
The purpose could be virality & awareness and trying to get as many eyeballs as possible. But it could also be to try to create super fans.
They can coexist and is key why when you are establishing your content pillars, and understanding the purpose behind each, you first want to understand what your actual goal is during this season.
Is it growth? Is it affinity?
6. Social Series
This is like thinking of your social account as a TV channel with the possibility of having endless shows.
You want to be able to look at the content pillars, the purposes, and then create the social series around them.
Why a social series?
- It's simple, scalable, repeatable
- Creates an expectation in our mind
- Forms a habit
You want to create these social shows so that you're cementing the expectation in someone's head, so that when they see your content in their feed, they are stopping the scroll based on that habit that you have formed in their head.
This is how you do it:
- Take a content pillar, attach it to a purpose, and then you attach that purpose to a social series.
- Then every social series could have its own character or characters.
- Then based on your overarching narrative, you're going to create filters so that each series is aligned with your mission and your values.
Summary:
1. Narrative Building
2. Mission
3. Establish the Enemy
4. Characters
5. Pillars & Purpose
6. Social Series