A Social Media Strategy For Comedians Who Don't Do Crowd Work

by Andi Whiskey

Whether you like it or not, social media is a huge key piece to leveling up your career as a stand-up comedian. It’s unavoidable these days, and the sooner you stop fighting it, the easier it’ll be. 

To grow on social media, you need a mixture of ingredients, and I’m going to be straight up with you: one of those ingredients is luck. There is no perfect formula for “going viral” and growing on social media takes work. But one of the key ingredients always necessary is consistency. You need to be posting consistently. If you want to increase your odds of “going viral”, you need to be throwing up more posts.

Comedians Don't Want To Give Away "The Goods"

A lot of comedians are loath to post their clips on social media for a number of reasons. Some worry about posting some of their core jokes that they use in their set, because then if people come to their shows, they’ll already know most of their jokes. So then crowd work clips are how a lot of comedians get around this, because crowd work is always unique to that one show and doesn’t give away the goods, but what if you’re not a crowd work comedian?

The strategy I’m going to outline below is for any comedian, but particularly those who don’t do crowd work and still want a steady stream of comedy clips for their social media.

This strategy takes work and discipline. This isn’t a shortcut to get around needing crowd work clips. This is just another path you could take if crowd work doesn’t fit your vibe.

I, personally, don’t do crowd work because I had a brain injury that makes it difficult. So I came up with this strategy by watching other successful comedians who also don’t do crowd work, to see how they’re maintaining consistency with their social media clips.

A tiny bit about my background, before we dive in. I’ve been working in marketing for over 2 decades. One of my “jobs” is to create digital marketing strategies for large brands, so this is what I do professionally. I’m just applying what I know to the weird space that is stand-up comedy, which is a bit of its own beast.

Let’s break down the strategy. We’ll start with the outline, and then dive into the details. The general idea is to keep yourself constantly writing small "expirable" jokes that you can use instead of crowd work. 

Pop Bits Social Media Strategy for Comedians

1. Create your core set: 7-10 minutes you know always do well and you have down pat so you don’t have to think about it. 
   Structure your core set with an intro, a middle, and a closer. General advice is to have your 2 best jokes split, one somewhere in the intro, and one as your closer.
2. Include a Pop Bit After Your Intro.
   Front load a joke that you don’t mind quickly retiring that will do well on social media. It’s best if it fits 1 of 3 pillars:
   1. A Current Event Joke - Something about pop culture or current politics.
   2. A Trending Topic Joke - This is hard to pull off, but if you hit a trending topic on social just right, your video could pop off.
   3. A Super General Relatable Joke - Something that will get high engagement on social media with comments like, “OMG I relate so hard to this,” ya know? 
3. RECORD YOUR SETS.
   This shouldn’t have to be said. Record every set. Get a cheap camera or a good tripod for your phone and get in the habit of recording every single set. 
4. After You Get a Good Clip of Your Pop Bit, Post It.
   Post it to Instagram, TikTok, and/or YouTube shorts. We’ll talk more about some posting best practices below.
5. Retire Your Current Pop Bit And Start Working Out a New One.
   This is a cycle that’s meant to keep your content fresh, and will take a lot of work to keep it going, but that’s comedy baby.
6. Save All Your Retired Pop Bits.
   The formula for them could potentially be reworked for new current events. There are patterns to everything. 

What Is A Pop Bit?

A Pop Bit is a joke or bit that doesn’t necessarily fit your normal “core” set, and is strategically created for social media (and to engage the crowd), and can be quickly retired with no effect to your core set. 

Let’s break it down.

After your first year or two of comedy, you should have a “core set”. That’s at least 7 minutes of jokes you’ve tested and refined and found they generally always work. You may have more or less than that, but they’re jokes you intend to keep using until you record a 30 min special or retire them, right? 

Recording your 30+ min special is the end goal, so if you’re looking to grow, you should be slowly amassing 30 min of tested and refined jokes by working them out in your 8-12 min sets on showcases. All of those jokes are part of your “core set” because you plan to still use them until you’re done with them.

Pop Bits are jokes with a shorter timeline. They’re jokes that you don’t intend to ever be part of your big special. They’re not your best work. They have a shelf life, and that’s all okay.

They still do need to be good jokes. They essentially need to “pop” and then you retire them and move on.

Types of Pop Bits

There are 3 pillars of Pop Bits, although this is not a hard and fast rule. If you find a different type of joke fits as a Pop Bit for you, great. Run with that.

Current Events

This is the “main” type of Pop Bit I’ll talk about, because I think it’s the best to work with. It’s also the hardest to write about, because the topics may be further from your own circle of topics you write about. That’s the case for me, at least, so it’s a healthy stretch for me to learn how to write about things outside of my comfort zone.

Examples as of March 31, 2025:

• A news reporter being added to a confidential chat
• Trump says he'll have a third term
• Boeing planes keep crashing

Trending Topics

This one is hard to pull off on time, but will likely do well on social media if you get a clip fast enough. Chasing trends can be a maddening endeavor, because if you write the joke but then don’t get a good enough clip fast enough, you may miss the window of relevancy to get the joke out.

But boy, if you get a solid joke out on a trending topic fast enough, you could find yourself potentially going viral if you can hit the sweet spot. 

Examples as of March 31, 2025:

• Anti-aging is trending as a topic (if you write about it, make sure you know what the trending OPINION is on the topic)
• Mr. Beast is unfortunately always trending
• Morgan Wallen implying hanging out on SNL was godless

Relatable Ideas

This is, in theory, the easiest topic to write about, and a harder one to have pop on social media. Relatable ideas are typically observations of every day life in a way that makes people go, “OMG that happens to me!”, etc. 

This is hard to have pop, but if you find a good formula that encourages engagement from people, you could see the algorithm really push your video out.

Zoltan Kaszas is the main pro comedian I studied for all of these ideas, and he has a ton of great examples of all 3 of these pillars. He doesn’t do a lot of crowd work, but he does write a TON and comes up with a lot of relatable jokes with high engagement on Instagram, or great jokes on current events. You can see what I’m talking about from just this screenshot of his feed.

His relatable jokes are around anxiety or owning cats. Plus he has some current event jokes he's written quickly and recorded at recent shows.

Examples as of March 31, 2025:

• Owning cats/dogs
• Anxiety
• Autism (also trending)
  

A great question about this came up; what sets a General Relatable Joke apart from your core set? That’s up to you. 

I have jokes I write that I like, but they don’t fit the story arc I tell in my core set. When that happens, I find a way to work them into a set, typically by observing something about the room that I can relate to the joke. I get a recording of it, then retire the joke, because I’ve gotten a payoff from it and feel good about it.

Front Load Your Pop Bits

Put the joke towards the front of your set, but after the crowd is warmed to you.

You don’t want to worry about forgetting the lines to your new joke, so putting it earlier in the set will help reduce stress.

You can have it be one of the first jokes you do, but watch the crowd to determine this. If you’re going up early in the lineup and the crowd is still cold, you might not get a big enough laugh response for the clip to be good.

Do The Amount of Laughs Matter In The Clip?

Yes and no. The better your joke, the less it matters. I’ve seen clips with very little laughs pop off still because the joke hit and got high engagement on social. There’s no hard answer, and I’ll be honest: I’m a bigger proponent of consistency in posting over only posting the highest of quality of clips. 

Keep Pop Bits Short

It doesn’t need to be a long story, as it’s not part of your core set. 45 seconds to 2 minutes is a sweet spot for these types of clips. Also, make sure you have a good hook in the first 3-6 seconds of your clip. This is to keep people from continuing to scroll when they see your clip.

Keep all of that in mind as you write your joke. It needs to be concise, quick, and hard hitting. 

A Quick Exception: Some Trending Topics or Current Events May Need to Be Explained in the Setup

Audiences don’t always have all the information you have because you may have gone deeper down the rabbit hole; that’s just something to keep in mind.

An example: if you are writing about a famous influencer on TikTok, you may have to explain who they are first. Do it carefully, so you don’t talk down to the crowd. Give them quick information about the influencer, only what’s relevant for your joke. 

You can probably remove part of the explanation in the setup when you post the clip online, because it’s possible the people online understand the joke. And pro tip: if you are writing a joke about a trend, video, or influencer on social media, you can remix their video for the hook of your video, the first 3 seconds. Then that serves as a solid explanation/setup for your standup clip.

Keep Writing Pop Bits Often

I use an exercise for when I am just sitting down to a dedicated writing hour or more. I will start with writing pop bits, to get my brain flowing. They shouldn't be super involved, I just need a solid 45 second to 2 minutes of a joke on the topic. 

I then move on to working on writing my normal jokes. Although sometimes, things come up in my normal writing time that I realize could be better as pop bits, as well. That'll happen. 

I organize my jokes so that when I have a pop bit ready, I set it aside. Then, if the show is right for one of them, I pick one out, I figure out my segue in and out of the joke, then I throw it in the set and make it happen.

Having multiple Pop Bits written and ready to go means I'm not locked in to any particular one and forced to make it work at any specific show. So much of comedy is making sure everything fits the vibe, the crowd, your own mood, etc. 

Side Benefits Of This Pop Bits Strategy

Besides just growing your social media presence, writing and posting pop bits can help your comedy as a whole.

You Get Into a Habit of Writing a Lot of Jokes

This strategy takes work. You need to practice writing often, to have a selection of pop bits to try out. As you do this more and more often, you may find writing jokes starts to become easier as you find the formulas and the styles that fit you best.

Your Sets Feel Fresh to the Audience

Yes, it’s a performance, and everyone can assume you’ve done your sets over and over for a lot of audiences. But people still like to feel special. 

If you have a bit in your set that is about something that happened in the past couple weeks, this lights up a listener’s brain for a couple reasons: 1. It might be something they were just talking to a friend about so they lean in to hear your take and 2. It might clue them in that this is a newer joke that others haven’t heard yet, so it has a fresh, special feeling to it.

You Have a Lot of Joke “Bones” That Can Be Repurposed

Just because you retire a joke that may have become less relevant doesn’t mean its lifespan is completely over. 

Let’s take this joke of mine as an example:

Just found out in Texas, it is a STATE FELONY to own more than 6 sex toys. And boy, what a way to find out I'm one step closer to being eligible to be President of the US.

The sex toys topic is timely right now because it’s currently trending thanks to a new bill being introduced in Texas that requires ID if you purchase sex toys online. Cool, it’s trending, it’s a current event, it has popped for me. But it has an expiration date. This topic won’t be fresh forever. What then?

The second half of the joke, the punchline is about Trump being a felon. The way I worded it is a bit evergreen (as long as Trump is relevant). The next time there is something trending in the news about a weird way you can commit a felony (there are LOTS of these, if I wanted to do the research), I can use that punchline.

Better yet, what I plan on doing is when I start traveling for comedy again, in each state I travel to I’ll find one of their weird laws where you could accidentally commit a felony for doing a common thing. These exist everywhere. So it’s not a current event, but it is relevant to that audience that I’m visiting, and tells them that I’m present and invested in my performance in their town/state because I’m doing a joke relevant to them.

It’s a formula for me now.

Setup: Strange law or situation where it’s possible I commit a felony.
Punchline: “And boy, what a way to find out I'm one step closer to being eligible to be President of the US.”

Another Example

The below screenshot is a joke I worked out briefly using a post on Threads. It didn't fit my core set, because it doesn't fit my general vibe or persona I craft in my sets. It did, however, fit the "general relatable joke" criteria for a pop bit... everyone's regretted buying questionable store sushi before or at least seen it in the wild.

So I kept it ready, and then had a brewery show with just the right crowd for the joke. I wasn't going to do any jokes about my dating or married life, so this strange little "sex is like sushi" joke fit better without people trying to figure out how it goes with my other stories. I knocked it out just after my intro bits, got a clip out of it and posted. I now don't feel sad that I wrote a good joke that I have no intention of using in my core set I'm building for my special. It already completed the life cycle of a joke for me, and I'm happy with it. 

EXERCISE

Write down 5 potential premises fitting each of the 3 Pop Bits pillars:

1. Current events
2. Trending topics
3. Relatable topics

Write 3 jokes from the list of premises.