If you’ve followed the news or opened X this fall, you’ve probably seen Polymarket.

It’s that prediction market for politics (and more) that’s been all over the place lately. I’ve been following their rise for the past year from a no-name niche betting market to over $1B assets under management — with the CEO on the cover of Forbes and presidential candidates mentioning them in speeches.

Throughout the rise of Polymarket, I’ve become friendly with a few members of their growth marketing team here in NYC. And the one thing I keep asking them again and again is: “HOW ARE YOU GUYS EVERYWHERE????”

Here’s what I’ve learned.

A Breakdown of Polymarket’s Marketing Strategy

Screenshot Marketing

The first time most people come into contact with Polymarket isn’t their site or app.

It’s usually a screenshot posted on social media or across the news. And if you look at any screenshot of Polymarket, you’ll see their name and logo.

This placement was not an accident, I promise you that.

During talks with their team, I learned there was quite a lot of A/B testing done to make sure their logo would appear on almost any possible screenshot.

Anytime a screenshot is shared across the internet, from X to LinkedIn to TikTok to Reddit, Polymarket is right there.

The logo and name are colored light gray so it’s not too in-your-face to the point where you’d want to crop it out. They’re smarter than that. Instead, the logo is just subtle enough to be seen, but it doesn’t take anything away from the image.

This is a genius strategy built for the age of social media that couldn’t have existed a couple decades ago.

In fact, there’s even a term for this style of marketing: it’s called screenshot marketing, and it involves using screenshots to make your marketing feel more natural.

It’s like sending screenshots of someone’s messages to a group chat. It’s juicy. Intriguing. And in the age of AI pictures and Photoshop, screenshots are unfiltered and raw.

Polymarket lives and breathes off screenshot marketing. $23B cybersecurity brands like Wiz do it. And I’ve used screenshots to go viral dozens of times.

In marketing, you always want to be as authentic as possible — and there’s nothing more authentic than sharing a basic unedited screenshot with your following like you would with your friends in a group chat.

Founder-Led Marketing

I’m a firm believer every startup should be doing founder-led marketing.

Whether you’re Elon or an 18-year-old AI founder, you should always be the biggest voice and proponent of your company. If the founder isn’t yapping about the company, then no one else will be.

The founder of Polymarket, Shayne Coplan, definitely believes in the importance of founder-led marketing.

He’s built his audience up to 26,000+ followers on X, and he keeps his content to a strict diet of 100% Polymarket-related tweets and retweets.

When Polymarket hit #1 on the App Store this October, Shane tweeted a simple screenshot (*cough cough* screenshot marketing) showing their success.

Because there’s been a lot of questions and attention on Polymarket betting versus regular polling, Shayne wrote a tweet to address this concern.

When Shayne spoke with famous political poller Nate Silver, he tweeted out the podcast to share this perspective on building Polymarket.

Shayne is locked in!

All Polymarket 24/7. No selfies with his dog. No pictures of his Lamborghinis. Not even any pictures of his team. All business all the time. And that business is making billions on the internet. You gotta respect it.

Social Proof

Typically when we think of social proof, we think of customer reviews.

But for Polymarket, it’s a little bit different.

Rather than customers “reviewing” Polymarket, their social proof strategy revolves around two things:

1. Amplifying thought leaders who are talking about Polymarket.
2. Sharing new big bets on Polymarket (thus normalizing the act of betting on Polymarket).

When other business leaders reference Polymarket, they repost it and hype it up.

When Polymarket hit #1 on the app store, Shayne tweeted a picture of it. When a presidential candidate talked about Polymarket during a speech, they tweeted about it.

But talk is cheap.

What’s more important for them is showing that people are actively putting money into the platform. They frequently tweet out screenshots of big bets and share updates around them.

(There we go with the screenshot marketing again!)

Capitalizing on ‘The Current Thing’

The public’s attention shifts like Charlie Sheen checking in and out of rehab programs. Remember him? Oh yeah, it’s been a while since he was The Current Thing.

See, with the rise of the 24-hour news cycle, there’s always a new current thing. And whatever The Current Thing is, people can’t get enough of it.

Polymarket is built perfectly to capitalize on The Current Thing.

Anytime there’s something happening in the news, Polymarket spins up a betting market for it, which they then make content to promote. It’s the perfect cycle. And during the election season, there’s a new current thing everyday.

Here, you can see their post about the latest swing state odds keeping people up to date with the swing state current thing. When a new big movie is hitting theaters, they’ll spin up a market for that too.

Because The Current Thing is always changing, there’s literally a never-ending flood of good content ideas … which also means a never-ending flood of memes to be made.

Meme Marketing

The Polymarket team are some of the best memelords on the internet.

I originally became friends with the Polymarket growth marketing team because they’re customers of my meme marketing software, Memelord Technologies.

(If you haven’t already read my last HubSpot post on meme marketing, check it out.)

While Polymarket is a serious business with billions of assets under management, they also have a team of silly viral memelords on staff — and even more meme pages and freelancers on a consulting basis.

That’s because when it comes to capitalizing on The Current Thing, memes are the #1 tactic. They’re free, fast to make (and great for time crunch), and by nature, they can easily be shared and go viral.

The tactic that really blew me away though was how their social media intern put Polymarket merchandise on popular memes. It’s literally such a smart hack. You take an easily recognizable meme and put your brand assets on it. Easy.

The coolest part though is that they don’t just use memes for their content. Memes are baked into their product UX and philosophy.

Not only do they post memes, but they spin up silly memey non-serious betting markets about whatever The Current Thing is. Like betting markets on whether presidential candidates will say “skibidi” or “brat” before the election.

These silly betting markets are a perfect recipe for virality. Money + Absurdity = Virality.

How You Can Market Like Polymarket

Obviously, not all of us want to talk about politics in our marketing.

And even if we do, most of us can’t at work.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t incorporate trends and whatever The Current Thing is into our strategies.

Every industry has its own current thing — whether it’s OpenAI’s exodus of employees in the Silicon Valley startup community, the Met Gala in the fashion world, or maybe Black Friday for the e-commerce industry.

Look out for The Current Thing and jump on it as soon as possible. Whether it’s using my daily email of new viral memes, X’s new trend analysis tool, or Hubspot Trends, make sure you’re incorporating new trends into your marketing.

BUT …

… That being said, you can’t just rely on trends.

Even me as the meme marketing guy, I don’t think you can just rely on just memes or capitalizing on The Current Thing for your marketing.

Yes, I wrote a book called Memes Make Millions, but they can only make you millions if you have a good product and message.

This is what Polymarket has done so well.

It’s not just memes and trends and news that is stale 24 hours later.

It’s Shayne clearly explaining why he’s building Polymarket. It’s Shayne going on podcasts with industry leaders like Nate Silver.

It’s the social proof of retweeting people like Elon Musk talking about Polymarket.

It’s the constantly updated screenshots of political markets. It’s the Forbes cover and billions of assets under management.

Polymarket’s marketing perfectly blends capitalizing on The Current Thing and using timeless marketing techniques. It’s truly brilliant to witness.

Watch out folks — I think we’re witnessing the beginnings of a generational company.