Latest Marketing Report & Guide Releases: September 2023

Hi, My Job is to curate best marketing resources per week for Marketers and Entrepreneurs. Here’s what I have found that might be helpful for you to get better at social media marketing.

 

 

You can join my newsletter “The Social Juice” where I share weekly marketing reports & releases for free. No spam, only what matters enters your mailbox.

 

1/ The State of Programmatic Advertising 2023

 

The Latest report from ANA shared a list of great insights into how this form of advertising is more oriented toward clickbait & advertising loss. But also shares a set of insights for marketers to do programmatic advertising even better. Read now.

 

2/ A Study on Email Security & State of Email.

 

I will say this resource is for brands & marketers that are highly focused on email. And want to understand where the security parts of email are changing alongside what policies are likely to come forward. Read here.

 

3/ TikTok’s Creative Marketing Guide 

 

This free guide focuses on helping Businesses understand the creative guidelines & marketing approaches. If you work at a creative marketing agency, This isn’t for you. It is a beginner’s handbook for new TikTok businesses and creators. Read here.

 

4/ TikTok’s Advertising Guide for Starters

 

TikTok launched this interactive guide on how to get started with advertising on their platform. It is tailored to show you different tasks & practices based on the type of business you have: Agencies, SMBs, Creator or Large Businesses. A bookmark worthy resource from TikTok.

 

5/ Washington Post’s SEO Guidelines Resource

 

The Publication launched a new page with all tips & practices they use for their content & the ones they advise to others. My initial review was they curated every SEO advice from Google Team & John Mueller. It’s likely that they will be updating the page with new practices from Google. Making it valuable for SEOs to check from time to time.

 

6/ The Real ROI of Metadata

 

I loved this report on state of B2B marketing & metadata. Overall this company publishes  quality B2B marketing updates from time to time. And the data in this report came from their partnership with Forrester. May be you will find new evidence to improve your metadata usage.

 

7/ A Report on Podcast Marketing, Shift to Video

 

There were a variety of Reports about podcasts that I came across, this was the only one not funded by a streaming platform. The last two reports I read were also funded by Spotify & Amazon Prime. This report focuses on the shift to video podcasts & how Youtube is slowly taking over other platforms. Read now!

 

8/ Facebook shares 22 Cards on how they use AI to rank Content

 

This is a must read resource for anyone working in organic marketing. With Meta revealing how they are ranking user content, use of AI in Meta for content distribution is doubled in past two years. This was also revealed in the recent Q2 Report from Meta. Check now.

 

9/ Edelman’s 2023 Trust Barometer Report

 

This report focuses on Gen-Z and their trust trust issues with Brands. Also, how this generation is connecting with brands after the initial purchase. Overall many of you might be familiar with this report. If not, This year’s read is must one.

 

10/ A Report on How much to pay Influencers?

 

Aspire, the leading influencer marketing platform launched their free report on how much to pay influencers. I won’t say it is the best. But it’s free. A better report was launched by FYPM but it’s paid. You can check both of these reports out.

 

11/ The Ultimate Guide to Digital PR

 

As a non-PR person, I feel like this guide is one of my favourite reads so far focusing on how Digital PR works. It is not about pitching your business to a list of Journalists & focusing on reaching out when you need PR help. A free resource for marketers also doing PR for the business.

 

12/ DoubleVerify’s report on CTV Ad fraud

 

CTV Ad fraud is huge right now. Because first of All, CTV subscription buy-sell or hacking is a huge issue in the industry. This Global Insights report from Doubleverify focuses on major advertising channel including state of CTV Advertising. Read now!

 

13/ A Resource on where the use of AI in Marketing exists

AI isn’t replacing a marketer. It is taking ugly tasks away from all of us. The report focuses on where the use of AI is happening in marketing. It is not taking the best parts of marketing away, but the worse. You can read the report for yourself to find for what marketers are using AI.

 

14/ Why your CMO wants to quit your startup

 

This insightful read about why most CMOs quit is one of my favourite going deep into why CMO roles are becoming short-term. And what needs to be fixed.

 

15/ A Report on Consumer-Brand Communication In UK.

This Research goes into how UK consumers are feeling disconnected to Brands in the country. And what they seek from the brands to better the commmunication and understanding between them. Reading the stories of UK brands,  I don’t think there is a huge communication issue. I feel there brands still do better than US brands. But if their target audience feels disconnected, how am I to tell?

 

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PS: This list is constantly updated with most clicked reports & resources from my newsletter. Bookmark it for future or join The Social Juice.

The New TikTok Algorithm: Update & Strategy

Not many people talking about this new algorithm yet, but this updates came after the launch of new data laws in Europe. And yes, this update benefits those users the most. Do you still want the juice? Keep reading.

 

The TikTok Algorithm you know is built on an idea of interest-based targeting. The algorithm shows you content based on your interactions with old content on the app. Using your watch history, the new videos are targeted toward your ideal interests. Youtube & Instagram work the same way, what’s changed then?

 

The change is ability to turn off personalization on your TikTok Feed. This is a new rollout from TikTok because GDPR in EU is trying to protect user data from social media apps. Now, this feature will absolutely ruin your TikTok watching experience and not a single user will turn it on because from my research. The videos that you see on your “personalized feed” are popular with high engagement but irrelevant.

 

That’s the new algorithm update, allowing users to replace personalized Algorithm with Localised Algorithm. What’s a localized algorithm?

 

To explain, when I was in India even with my German TikTok Account. I was unable to use the platform. Why and how? Two main elements used by TikTok is location & User data given during account creation. That location part isn’t using your GPS or IP address, I personally tried to use VPN in India to bypass TikTok. And I failed.

 

Because TikTok uses mainly Sim card data or email account location. I assume you are not someone living in a country with a TikTok Ban. So, I want to focus on the strategy & business part. How can this new algorithm benefit you?

 

Now that you know TikTok uses location data to show content when personalization is turned off. The second metric TikTok uses is Engagement, you will only find popular & trendy videos from your city, region or country  on “Popular” feed. Yes, this feed is labeled popular by TikTok.

 

Use these two learnings, I built the TikTok strategy for Small businesses & Artists. The local element of this algorithm is a helpful way for marketers & businesses to find what the local audiences are liking & what their interests are.

 

Usually what most people do to create a tiktok strategy is: 

 

1/ Your FYP page reflects what you like. You use that research & bias to create a strategy for your business.

2/ The Viral TikTok content within your industry reflects what your ideal followers like.

These are two main research elements used to build a tiktok content strategy. And this workflow lacks “local targeting”. Because that part is where you can show more importance & build a better strategy that builds community.

 

Here’s what your new TikTok strategy should look like: 

 

1/ The Bias about your industry, niche & customers is built through FYP. Because you might think that what you experience or like is what others seek. I am not saying Bias is wrong, but validate it before building a strategy.

 

2/ The Virality in your industry & growth seen when you research on TikTok about few topics or your competitors. You learn a lot from doing that research, getting the knowledge about what goes viral. But what is viral doesn’t differentiate you, use the research & mix it with your branding.

 

3/ The Community & Local Word of mouth will be now built with help of  “Popular feed” on Tiktok, with personalization, turned off. What that means is studying the content you see there as it is local and popular within your region. Through that research you have the ability to see what makes the average tiktok user interact.
No-algorithm feed will teach you only the right thing, which is “what people react to?”.

Use these segments in your TikTok strategy to build a more loyal & segmentized audience. I feel the importance of doing so, because the more far your audience lives, the connection is still strong but not that effective. When you build local, you have more resources to empower your audience. Organising events, local referrals & PR levels up your business even more.

 

Comparing this to Youtube

 

As I cover the marketing & social media updates regularly in The Social Juice. Youtube also announced a similar algorithm update for everyone. The TikTok update is limited to EU only, this one is global. The feature is to turn off watch history, when you do that. Youtube can’t use your content interactions for new video recommendations.

Again, I know less than 0.1% of Youtube users will turn off their watch history. Especially when not many people are talking about this change. For context, while TikTok added “turn off personalization” due to privacy issues. Youtube launched this feature very randomly, giving users the ability to turn off watch history.

Again, This feature changes the algorithm & marketers can learn how Youtube pushes the content forward with no watch history & content interaction data.

 

More Insights on TikTok & Social Media Algorithms:

 

If you lack context about how social media algorithms work & how this change impacts the overall tiktok marketing experience. I would recommend you to read these two guides written by me:

 

1/ How Social Media Algorithms work

2/ TikTok Marketing Guide

 

I would say, we need more education on how machine learning algorithms are used to run social media & now AI does it. The change needs to be addressed ASAP. I should get on the job of writing a guide on Algo and how small changes like this new August TikTok algorithm update impacts marketing. In ML & AI, we should value even a 1% change because it matters.

Content Distribution Is Broken; Only Strategy that works

Since March 2023 I have distributed my content across Internet without skipping a day. Content Distribution is messy and you won’t find anyone telling that unless you ask them to reveal the truth. (by holding them in arms)

 

What is Content Distribution? It is isn’t often talked about but Content distribution happens into different ways.

 

First, Content Distribution is manually done by an individual like me. Second, Content Distrubution is done by others because of either convenience or the act of stealing.

If you create Personalized content, Both type of distributions will happen. I used the term “Personalised Content” because don’t mistake it for creation of great content. It doesn’t matter you have great or good content. Automatic distribution of your content is unlikely because great doesn’t mean highly consumable.

 

Highly Consumable aka Personalised Content gets often stolen because it works like a charm. I know that because my personalised content has been stolen a lot and it did much better for Content Thiefs.

 

Instead of being a crybaby, I learned that Personalized Content is a call from consumers. It is meant to be stolen because more people want to consume it. Don’t become the barrier between people receiving what they need and you being a crybaby to stop the distribution loop. I call this nature of content marketing.

 

The Stealing Part happens ignore it. I require your focus on the human nature of getting your content shared by others with credits. It generally happens when you make sharing more convenient. Most people aren’t familiar with this but product development at social media apps focuses a lot on the idea of making content distribution more convenient. Whenever a new content format launches, Sharing APIs are made accessible to developers and public. Allowing easy distribution of content.

Natural Content Distribution

Like that, You need to focus on the distribution funnel that exists on online ecosystem. It starts with social media sharing buttons within your blog or social media platforms. (Yes, I certainly don't have social sharing buttons on this website as it is going through a redesign). But first it starts here where you make it easier for them to share. The regular strategy is often having social media buttons to increase chances of reader sharing the content. But that is too normal nowadays and often people forget to focus on them even though they liked the article. Quick Question, when was the last time you actually used them to distribute someone else's content?

 

I certainly don't. That is why prompt the audience in the middle or at the end with a message oriented text. Asking them to share the article or post because you wrote it due to X reasons that matter. Make sure after reading, they realise that what you wrote is meant to shared with more people. That is how content reaches TikTok these days, I have seen hundreds of videos were people organically react to an editorial article from The New Yorker or Washington Post, etc. Because at the end of the writing, The author made it clear what he wrote needs to be heard.

 

That is easy to do when the post is focused on the topic not the act of marketing. For marketers, It is about straightforward reminder of why the marketing wrote it. A great example is 'Think with Google' the famous blog exists because google wanted to build that culture of expertise around their workforce. Trying to promote jobs at Google by showing the young learners that at google you don't just earn, you learn from talent and experts at the company. And it was very clearly revealed when they launched the resource.

 

Too many Blogs and resources are launched without company's revealing purpose of them. That affects their content distribution because the end user doesn't get the emotion behind the content. Truth to be told, after writing content for other companies I know blogs are launched always without a purpose. But even having a fake purpose to tell works sometimes. It's never too late. Tell the audience either in the middle or the end your writing purpose and make them share the writing even more.

 

Does your company blog included a discussion about purpose? May be not. I had it. What you are reading is categorised as "Insights" because blogs are leverage for My work. 'Insights' are Knowledge I acquire on regular basis distilled into an unfiltered writing. It is meant to share the best with others.

 

Now, you have the starting part where you focused on the purpose sharing element and social sharing buttons. Easy part: Done. The Next Place of Distribution is when you create for a social media platform and people share it naturally.

 

Differences in Natural Distribution on Social

The Content formats changes how likely are people to share your content. And in terms of video content User interface does the same. Starting with TikTok & Instagram Reels by showing the number of shares the platform encourages other users to share the post. Wanna see this working in real-time? In a slack chat be the first one to react and add an emoji more people will click on the emoji to react and engage. Test again with no emoji, very likely that you won't get the interactions from others.

 

The reason this works everywhere is presence of others makes us more likely to join the interaction. In Practicality may be try to be the first one to use share buttons on TikTok & IG. Highlighting the count of shares on your videos.

 

Format Distribution

 

Second, Distribution through formats. On twitter, You will find a set of twitter threads going viral. What if I told you majority of them are transcripts of podcasts and videos. In my network I talked to many creators that grew from repurposed distribution of content from other creators. Summing up content from others in a personalised format of content. A great example is Sahil Bloom & Sachin Ramje both creators grew by distributing content from each other. What Sachin did was visualising content from Sahil's newsletter and tweets for people interested in reading content in images. Sachin credited sail in his tweets and then sahil retweeted that tweet to his audience.

 

A simple Idea of X person distributing content to a similar audience but the demand is different. Because personas change and requirements too. I distributed my content to multiple platforms but some of my content I never distributed because of my own limitations. But I found others doing it for me, my newsletter content was getting distributed with credits by one of my readers. That's natural don't feel sad if the content you create doesn't get much eyeballs maybe you haven't tested the best content format for that audience. This natural act tells you to do that experimentation as much as you can until you find the right format.

 

Coming back to natural act, this happened on twitter. But it can happen on any platform. A blog to a linkedIn carousel or thought post. A quote on twitter or threads app to Instagram post. And a Reddit Post to TikTok reaction video. A million examples on Internet, for businesses they think this doesn't help. why?

 

Because this natural act of content distribution doesn't connect with why people buy or why will they remember you? All businesses need to rethink this because it does. When you have brand tone and identity integrations figured out.

Ask yourself: 

Brand Emoji's on employee profiles and social media handles help with remembrance of your business. The reason I mentioned highly identical internet searches is because broad results will soon get handled by AI. You need to interconnected and make sure that topic discussions are very relevant to a group of audiences. When that group feels like they are being served content that matters, they will share it with others.

 

Brand watermarks are important because your brand identity is the most known element of your business on Web. Most algorithms are likely to recognise your authority and prioritise your content when it is distributed by others. This also helps your organic growth when you do social media marketing.

 

The social media app theory is all about if your ideal user uses reddit and they love it. What's their secondary social media app to use? Find that and make sure you are making distribution of content from X to Y easy. Because that user might want to share your content forward to connections on that app. For Example, Medium & Substack posts were getting heavily shared to Instagram stories. Now both of these platforms provide media assets and options for regular users to share your content more easily.

 

Take Twitter to Instagram Stories for example. For TikTok, Do you know most clicked link on Facebook? It is TikTok. TikTok introduced the ability to download videos and they had watermark at the end. That led to what? Organic sharing and then people shared downloaded video + source on Facebook benefitting TikTok and Creators.

Do the market research to find how your follower on X social media app prefer to distribute content with others. First you understand the flow and better it through new practices. The ones you might develop over time.

 

Now: Why I explained Natural Content Distribution

 

Probably because regular content distribution is broken. When I started distributing my content manually it was real hard. I faced no organic reach on social and community platforms like reddit, Facebook groups and forums banned me. You are likely to get the same experience with community bans and no reach because that's how regular distribution works.

Starting Stage

 

First,  many creators/businesses do content distribution with help of their influence. They might ask their followers to join them on X platform. That helps them to have a kickstart and it does help. Still you have to remember that they use that X platform less than their main social media app. Kickstart is cool, don't get overwhelmed by that growth. When doing distribution always focus on the audience that likes to. use that platform most.

 

Second, You got that kickstart, now what's next? The next state is time consumption. Every platform has their own star creators and you need to network with them to get the juice out of distribution. If you aren't doing so, your distribution isn't getting the best results. How I approach networking on distribution is simply reach out on your main social media platform. Because it is very likely that because of your following and authority that person is more likely to connect with you.

 

I did this with Amanda Natividad, She is a huge influencer on Twitter with over 100k followers. Pretty hard to connect with her when you are a content distributor, not creator. What I did was connect with her on Instagram and then build that connection. Making that relationship expand to Twitter or other platforms. Save yourself time and connect where people see you as an authority, first impressions matter.

 

Community Distribution

 

Third, The "Thought Leader Ego Issues" and "Money Making" issues make it hard. Why I said content distribution is broken because of these two issues.

 

First, We have community distribution. A variety of Startups & SaaS platforms go to reddit, Indie Hackers, Hacker News, Facebook Groups & others. Thinking that a link and Intro to your content is enough.

 

90% of the communities are owned/moderated by companies & Thought-leaders seeking their benefit first. It is very likely that you will get banned if they feel endangered by your presence. I was lucky on reddit where the moderators felt endangered by my presence after I successfully built my community within their space. And that support from members couldn’t allow them to ban me.

 

I wasn’t lucky on Facebook groups where two communities banned me even though I was getting the most likes within their community. The members loved me, but I was silenced.

 

That’s the state of community distribution. What I learned from my mistakes was switching to natural distribution. Now my distribution strategy contains:

 

When the community is on slack or Discord, both platforms allow to add a Bio. In that, Adding company & Brand Identity was the key. In the content, I deleted every mention of that content being promotion towards my business. This works, because your content becomes your identity & people will find you if they want to see more of you.

 

In case of Facebook Groups, First what I did was instead of having links in my post. I switched to Comments but that didn’t work for too long. Now the rule is to have no links. What I did was creating an alternative profile that shows no relation to the brand.

 

Distributed content through that profile to facebook groups. Acted as natural distributor instead of being promotional. At the end of the post, I only had this sentence “credits: The Social Juice Newsletter” or “X Client Name”. For Moderators & Owners it meant I was X person distributing content from Y source because I liked it. Instead of being promotional.

 

PSA: You should never be promotional, value-first is appreciated. What I mean here is 99% of communities have blocked the options for marketers to even have their earned value back to website or business. To fight against that, I am telling you this strategy.

 

I run my own community. I don’t like members that only promote, give and take is the best option.

External/Exposure-Oriented Content Distribution

 

Moving to External Distribution System, Referrals, Influencers, Organic PR & WOM (Word of mouth). It hurts me that how fast this idea of allowing others to serve your community is dying. A majority of Influencers & Creators will not distribute your content forward because they have jealousy against you. Instead they will continue to promote their content or likely choose another source to talk about that topic. It happens because I have experienced that.

 

How to fix this problem? And the bigger question is do you want to build an exposure distribution system?

 

On LinkedIn and Twitter the connection network is most important. That network builds a loop to distribute each other’s content.  Creating an impact leading to more distribution.

 

If you neglect that like I did you might feel quite sad. Because your impact within your industry might be huge, but your content never reached the “Distributors; PR & Influencers”. The ones who might distribute it further. Internet is huge, 10k ,100k,1M followers doesn’t matter. There are a huge set of influencers that never get the recognition of their work because they are part of a different circle. The same can happen to you,  your content is reaching the right audience. Your business is good.

But the Industry doesn’t see you as the chosen one. No one writes about your success, business or community. Why? Because you are disconnected from the distributors like a self-published Author.

 

Now this form of Distribution isn’t necessary. This is what you desire. Yes, Few are lucky to get this distribution automatically. May be you live in New York or Berlin. Everything you do even when it’s little earns you exposure.

The Best marketer isn’t the most known marketer. Do you think Seth Godin or Gary Vee are the best marketers? Nope.

They had the distribution figured out in the starting of their career. Seth wanted that distribution, then he didn’t. I always tell Brands to be careful with this form of distribution.

 

Because External Distribution isn’t controllable. And it can die pretty quickly making your Business a fallen trend. For Personal Brands; CEOs & Individuals it might not die off or make a huge impact because we are human, we change.

 

Businesses maintain a consistent brand image in the consumer mind for a long period of time. Hard to bounce back when External Distribution F**ks up. If you have made up the decision of chasing External Distribution, The process is very simple be where they are.

Shift a little bit of focus from your own community to serving those distributors.

Starting with PR, Make your content digestible for them. When they need help or call you for expert opinion. Make sure you give them Clarity. You can use AI, Give the PR profile to ChatGPT & then share your work with AI. The Bot will find the relevant statements  from your business in the past about X topic. Give them to PR & Journalists every single time they need.

Second get into Influencer Bubbles, Most Influencers are biased because that is what influence means. You have to build your own narrative to sell to the audience. The Distributors of content writing for big news publications and communities are part of different sub-set of influencer bubbles.

 

Find the Bubbles getting most exposure and then network with the members. Engage with them on their main social media channels. Often I have seen those bubbles don’t need consistent content distribution. They only need the narrative believer, once you tap into their narrative. They will start believing into your narrative and will distribute your content to their community.

Third is Getting  Money Exposure, A variety of LinkedIn C-level Executives & Leaders don’t like or interact with content because of opinionated content. You have to be oriented toward their brand to get exposure and distribution. Don’t seek interactions, seek hidden distribution.

 

A variety of Huge Businesses like Airbnb, Google & Atlassian monitor content and distribute internally but they never interact for obvious reasons. To get work and business from them.

Just make sure you have either tagged them or built connections with a set of team members on a social channel. Increase the probability of them discovering your content. Then, Distributing it forward becoming referrals of your work.

 

To prove why this works, I only have two words “social listening”. Most small businesses have started doing it. What makes you think the big brands don’t do it?

Traditional Content Distribution

 

Ending at Regular Content Distribution, The simple and well-know strategy in the world of distribution is “Design For X”. The Marketer tells you to take long form content and repurpose it with help of Editors or AI. And distribute it forward. Very Simple.

Long Form Content = Youtube Video, Blogpost, Webinar, Event recording, Masterclass or a Live Stream.

The Task is to Convert Long form into short form content for different social media platforms. What most do without resources to repurpose the content well is:

 

  1. A Blog turns into 400-500 word LinkedIn though post or 5-10 Quote tweets citing the main piece of content.
  2. A Youtube Video gets chopped up into a set of different Short-form videos for Instagram, TikTok & May be Pinterest.
  3. A webinar first turns into a Youtube Video. Then into a linkedIn highlight video to show company activity. Then, if the team finds that webinar a fit for IG or Tiktok, they might distribute it at last to those platforms.
  4. Pretty much the same happens to a masterclass, Event recording or a livestream. Only exception is decision of turning video into image content like LinkedIn/Instagram Carousels.
  5. Designing increases the workload and for that reason I have seen many B2B businesses skip this part.

 

You could be doing all this and you may have nothing to check your ROI for this sort of Distribution. You ask why? Because you need content strategies for each platform.

  1. Tweets need to be framed in a way they generate conversation. LinkedIn posts need whitespace between sentences + revealed earlier you need to aim your content at X business or Individual to attract clients/exposure.
  2. For Short-form content you will need to fit into video editing and topics that work for Instagram vs TikTok. When I say video editors make or break virality of your content. I am being truthful, either you understand where audience needs to focus or your editor does.
  3. Carousels on LinkedIn & Instagram require frameworks. I recommend a simple AIDA copywriting framework it works like a charm, even publishers like Washington Post use it.
  4. You will need Natural Distribution blended into this content distribution strategy. Understanding different platforms, personas and what features make user distribute organically is part of regular distribution too.

 

There You have it. This is the most used distribution strategy. It is time consuming and you will need more resources & help from the team to apply it.

Make the Decision

 

Natural Distribution means you have a content strategy that works well to allow organic distribution done for you by audience and admirers of your content.

External Distribution means you will have to use networking and authority. Then, that strategy will lead to those connections distributing your content on their strong channels. You overtake their core channels through this framework because most people like to speak where others are available to listen.

 

Exposure Distribution is only a slightly different than External. You focus majorily on people like PR persons & other marketers that lead to more exposure not more business.

 

Regular Content Distribution is an act of marketing yourself organically with exchange of time for customer engagement. You are spending time to manually repurpose content to different platforms with a general understanding of what needs to be optimised forthe X channel.

 

 

In Natural distrubution you don’t optimise for X channel after creating content. You create content while thinking about optizing for X & Y channels.

 

Learn Your Social Media Distribution Platforms

 

The General understanding of social media platforms is important, I am in the proccess of writing one-page guides for social media platforms. Those guides are meant to help readers with understanding current state of the app & best practices. I have been kind of lazy with finishing writing about every platform. So far, I have covered these platforms:

 

  1. TikTok Marketing
  2. Instagram Marketing 101
  3. Pinterest Marketing 
  4. State of LinkedIn 2023

 

I have yet to finish writing about a set of different social media marketing channels. But it takes weeks for a single person to finish these write-ups. I appreciate you sharing this guide forward with your team, other creators or B2B businesses.

Why I didn’t mention Paid Distribution?

Nothing against Paid Media or paying for promotions. I have been part of major paid distribution campaigns from B2B companies like Storyblok & Insider Intelligence. And being on the publisher side promoting their content to my audience, I would say paid distribution is more of a paid media strategy than an act of content distribution.

The real definition of Content Distribution in my world is:

 

Content Distribution is an engine built by your team to build a natural flow of content like a river. That river flows through different segments of Internet. Your Paid Media teams are playing role of God and disrupting that natural flow to increase the flow of that river.

Simply meaning that paid media distribution fastens the process and you achieve your desired results faster. But you still need to do everything I told before to master content distribution.

Content Marketing overall is built on a principal that brands that get organic will also get paid media right. But Brands that get Paid media  might not get Organic content right. That’s why  practice organic content distribution dynamics, before jumping to paid distribution.

Measuring your Distribution

When Distribution done right, one of the biggest impact you will see would be on Branded Search. Most B2B brands & Content Creators have built their branded search through distribution channels like publications, Content & PR. That is easy to track through Google Search Console & SEO tools like Ahrefs, Semrush & others.

 

After this measuring social media distribution individually is easy to do. Most All-in-one social media management tools or CRM platforms like Hubspot & Sproutsocial will provide you with a dashboard to find your ongoing performance. The hard part is interconnecting your content distribution and making sense out of time & resources spent. For Creators & Small businesses, don’t fall for tracking you won’t have enough time to make sense out of it.

 

To B2B brands, I would recommend to build a google sheet and maintain a list of all your content getting distributed and use a data tracking tools like Supermetrics for collecting marketing data.

 

Paid Distributors will generally share data and brand awareness results when the 1:1 connections are built. Otherwise you will need to do the social listening to track distribution done without your input.

My Personal Take on tracking content distribution is tracking depends on who is responsible. A lower-level community manager will always need to track the performance not that it’s necessary. It’s because of the job position , distribution is always doing magic even when someone at a starting level.

As a creator, I don’t like to track content distribution because I know engagement measuring tools are meant to fool me a little to either making me create more or feel low about results. Distribution is all about expanding the impact of my work.

 

The Outro

I will now head to bunch of different marketing channels to distribute what I wrote here. Before I do that, I have an end message for you.

 

I don’t think chapter of Content distribution is closed here. I have yet to breakdown some of my favourite creators/B2B marketers doing great marketing with their existing content. To read them, consider subscribing to my newsletter. Where I not only share insights. But act as distributor of golden marketing content from other marketers.

Not many content marketers have written great distribution guides. But this read from MKT1 about content distribution is one of my favourite and in depth reads. In future, I plan to refine this  rant + insight post into a well-written guide like the above from MKT1.

For further content strategies and marketing reads, feel free to check my blog or Insights page. To save the hassle, You can check my services page & sign up for work inquiry.

 

Most Marketers become Villains for Good

Have I gone mad? As a marketer, I sometimes feel like a villain, and that can be disconcerting.

 

Consider the term “Marketing Guru”. What does it really mean? Who can rightfully claim that title? I would argue, no one can.

 

Indeed, the notion of a 'Marketing Guru' is a construct a marketer likely came up with. Most of us, especially those who are considered thought leaders or share their insights online, have a narrative to put forward.

 

The  Storytelling

 

Every marketer has a story, a narrative that is never perfect, yet compelling. It always includes a villain and is open-ended, because there's always a new product to sell.

And in the universe of selling marketing services to others. The villian is “marketing guru”.

 

In this story, a 'Marketing Guru' is but a fictional character, a creation of another marketer's narrative. The other marketer is every marketer, take me as an example.

 

A Tale of Two Marketers

Let me illustrate with a personal anecdote:

I often portray marketers who promise quick growth as villains. In my narrative, the primary antagonist is a fictitious character, "Walter The Marketer" from Kentucky. Never visited that place in my life, I only knew Kentucky from KFC & hating walter.

 

However, during a random visit to Kentucky, I attended a networking event. The truth I discovered there changed my perspective completely.

 

In Walter's universe, he is the hero and the villains are those marketers who take ages to deliver results. To Walter, they are the 'gurus'.

 

Remorse & Realization

 

Returning to New York, I was struck by the realization that we marketers are stuck in a seemingly endless loop of pointing fingers and selling our narratives.

 

But why do we do this? Simply put, because a hero-villain narrative sells, and it provides solutions. They may be varied, but they work.

 

Who is the Real Villain?

 

In this loop, the real villain might surprise you: it's marketer no.3.

 

Marketer 1 will sell you a course about understanding algorithms.

 

Marketer 2 will sell you a book about building a loyal audience.

 

And then, there's marketer 3 who says, "Both are lying. You don't need these resources, you are fine as you are."

 

The difference is, marketer 1 and 2 offer you solutions, they help you get from point X to point Y. But marketer 3? He just sells you hope.

 

The Role of a Marketer

 

Indeed, saving money isn't always the answer because you still have a problem that needs solving.

 

Marketers are meant to be seen as villains, as the market needs both heroes and villains. And it can be quick to change sides.

Roles change. Even though, most consumers hate marketers. A marketer will have his time and will become hero when the consumer calls.

 

So, as a marketer, embrace your role as a villain. Remember, both 'villains' and 'heroes' in marketing are changing consumer mindset. You are always likely to be a villian in another marketer’s story.

I am a villian in eyes of social media managers who say the algorithm & data doesn’t matter. And Hero in the eyes of product marketers/managers that speak the language of tech & strategy.

The Story never ends, market changes. That’s why I love change & marketing. Both are married and this industry is like life.

Life & marketing are hard & Ever-changing. Both can exist without you. But you can’t exist without them. You can’t stop the change in both of them.

You can adapt, learn & change.

 

Winning consumer trust through Framing Effect

If I showed you my kitchen, You will know why I live on the cleaning side of TikTok. I have binge-watched many videos about cleaning but one kitchen hack comes back again and again.

 

Using Baking soda & Lemon instead of Dishsoap or Kitchen Spray.

 

In the consumer mind, they trust this cheeky hack more than a packaged product. Even though that supermarket product is better than the lemon hack.

 

Why it works is very simple? It is how different products & Ideas are framed to us.

 

 

First: When we see the lemon hack, our mindset is that dishsoap never works well. May be I should take control and try something myself. You take the control and start using lemon + baking soda. Now without realizing it, you are spending more power on proving yourself right than having a bright solution.

​
You could have achieved the same results with dish soap with that amount of work. But you like to think you were right, it works. And the same consumer mindset exists in most people.

 

Second: Have you watched the Joy by Jennifer lawernce? It is a movie built around a women selling a kitchen mop.

 

 

100s of kitchen mop, every single one of them looks the same. Regular TV broadcasts mop with features, what she did in the movie was tell her experience.

 

A simple story framework was displayed in the movie: Share-tell-listen.

 

Jennifer shared her experience and told everyone about the product. Then, she listened to what the audience said speaking less when they talked.
​

Often we frame it like this, Go tell your experience to the world. They will listen to it.

 

Nope, they won’t unless you listen too. Most brands build a listening audience, that stops listening when they have a bad product experience.

​
When both parties are listening the mindset changes to the consumer standing on your side to help when they have a bad product experience

​This is due to Framing Effect

 

First component of marketing that makes the most difference is Story. But stories are hard to tell and craft for most marketers. Framing comes in more handy to marketers.

 

As people buy products based on how the selling offer is framed to them. That makes your offer easy to purchase and market.

 

You could be the most insightful person, but the most famous insightful person will be the one with better framing. Take Gary Vee for example, He is one of the most famous social media marketer today.

 

Because when he started he framed his information in a positive video style. On other side, everyone was writing blogs like this one. Blogs were more valuable but that personalised video approach framed his information as a better option. Because of that 1:1 eye contact in the video.

 

That information was perceived as hand-crafted for the end user. The same rule plays here, that lemon hack (information) comes from a more personalised source to make people work even more to prove their trust in the Idea.

 

And the information about the dish soap was the product features on the label. No Impact!

 

Framing can make a huge difference in how your content is perceived by others. Have you thought about building your own framing system?

 

 

Digital Marketing Trends & Updates Breakdown

I wrote this on 30th June,  Social Media Day. A breakdown of what changed in world of Digital Marketing Trends & Updates this month.

You can read on for recap of everything in terms of social media & content marketing that changed in June 2023.

 

TikTok - Tell me your Desire 😈

 

I have to say, TikTok is going to be the biggest e-commerce and social media platform in the US & UK. With The launch of their “Trendy Beat” shopping program in the UK and internally it is called the project “S”. TikTok is aiming to achieve higher levels in terms of live shopping and selling their products.

 

The Intent here you need to know is TikTok is great for business, they also introduced a new creative challenge encouraging creators to submit UGC content directly to brands and marketers.

 

TikTok marketing attacks consumer wants! Not what consumers need. People on Reddit & Facebook groups are there to get information about products and services they need to live.

 

TikTok & Short-form content is a form of marketing that targets the audience's desire. And Tiktok will help marketers and businesses the most to target that desire but remember to take your time off. As a marketer, I hope it doesn’t strike back at your desire to buy X, Y, and Z.

 

Google Analytics - Secure your Data Before it’s too late!

 

Less than 24 hours are left now, Google Universal Analytics will sunset and you will have to use Google Analytics 4.
​
You might feel all caught up on the change to Google Analytics, but in reality, there were more than 7 Updates to GA4 announced this month.

What are the complaints about GA4:

​
And the biggest complaint of all is, You can’t copy in GA4, and this is the worst thing of all.

What is Better in GA4:

​

If you’re fully into the Google Advertising & tracking ecosystem it is better now. For Marketers with a focus on social media Ads, Influencer marketing & Other elements you need to use a tool like Supermetrics to track and combine your cross-channel data.*

Recent News for GA4 Users: New accounts can only access Last Click and Data-Driven Attribution for now. This is a huge data attribution problem! (Link)

Supermetrics has put together a GA4 Knowledge Center with everything you need for a successful migration to GA4. Find tips and tricks for how to make the most of your GA4 data, how to store your Universal analytics data, or a migration tootlkit which helps you to easily transition your reports from using Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4.

 

Instagram - Good for once! 😁

 

Instagram is here to tell you all the secrets and they revealed how their feed algorithms work. And Yesterday they announced how the AI models are distributing your content on Facebook and Instagram.

 

While I’m pretty happy to see what I wrote about how social media algorithms work in one of my recent newsletters was 100%. You can read more about my social media algorithm Insights here!

 

Moving forward! Instagram continues to develop its Reels editing tools. A set of new reels features was launched this week and a huge bug got fixed by the platform.

 

Instagram broadcasts are the new hype, they’re global now. I would suggest creators & brands use them wisely. Don’t use broadcasts only as a “new post” notification center. No one likes that! Try to share more human talks on these channels.

 

 

Agencies - You need a face!

 

Other than Apple’s marketing chief shouting out that Agencies live forever. Things aren’t looking that well for smaller agencies.

 

At Cannes Lions,  The spark of new agencies was hard to catch while the campaigns that won the awards were deserving. And the AI talk was at the center of everything.

 

Coming to AI, the WPP and Nvidia-AI partnership aims to build an AI content engine while their partner Ogilvy asks Influencer marketing agencies to disclose the usage of AI in their campaigns.

 

Agencies today need an AI talk show or a major brand face like Terry Crews. Terry with the launch of his agency is going crazy. He has plans to run his brand after he dies with AI tech, meaning building an Agency face that lives forever.

 

Recession, AI, and brand face. I will say small & new agencies need to rediscover themselves to survive in this growing agency world war. What agencies need today is changing!

 

LinkedIn - We Breath AI 🤦

 

Consumers are now already sick of AI-generated content. Etsy is completely off the charts, Reddit is getting AI bots replying and AI could kill a social media app. And LinkedIn could be it!

 

If it wasn’t for layoffs & recession, LinkedIn’s growth might have been a little different. LinkedIn knows that very well. To protect the future, LinkedIn is trying to go all in on AI.

 

LinkedIn is testing an AI-powered post-creation tool and launched AI Collaborative articles. LinkedIn is also testing AI assistants & expanding AI copy suggestions.

 

While doing that from Monday, LinkedIn creators started experiencing engagement & content issues. The same day LinkedIn revealed how its algorithm works. As of me writing this newsletter, LinkedIn is recovering from this change as revealed by Taplio in their recent updates.

 

Overall sentiment: LinkedIn is pretty active for now. I hope all this AI stuff doesn’t make it worse for them in the upcoming months.

 

Meta - Listen we’re growing but traffic 🤷‍♂️

 

Giving up on Facebook or Instagram? Meta continues to share that they are growing faster with the help of AI. Earlier this month Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta will be introducing Generative AI to all of their platforms.

 

Last week, they bragged about the increase in time spent on meta platforms at their AI marketing summit. The stories on the publisher side are quite different, as web traffic from Facebook has seen a huge drop. The reason behind this is all the AI model recommendation systems.

 

Each content interaction is playing a huge role now and AI models are still in training. They do make mistakes, publisher and website content rankings are random due to this factor.

 

Quick Feature Update: Facebook reels got more than 4 updates this month with the launch of the inspiration hub, promotion reels, and editing tools for users. WhatsApp also introduced two security features and launched WhatsApp channels + discovery filters for them.

 

Youtube - Please don’t do it! 🙅

 

Vidcon happened this month. And what I have to say is “Creator's Dilemma”. This is a fact that most agency owners and marketers I meet live in their dilemma of knowing it all and they make decisions based on their own bias.

 

And this same style of dilemma can originate from events like Vidcon in the future where creators come and talk about creation. Instead of building a feedback loop from their fans. The event is becoming more corporate than ever.

 

Creators & Influencers need the best advice from their audience. And a perfect example is MrBeast, creators who listened more to his advice started copying him. Instead of just taking the short lesson and getting feedback from viewers.

 

This needs to be fixed, Tickets are getting expensive every year. In the next two or three years, there will be no fans visiting. A creator version of Cannes Lions getting ready!

 

Quick Features Update: New Youtube Shorts remix feature was launched & best of all: the Youtube thumbnail A/B testing feature is launched and will be expanding to more creators slowly!

 

Twitter - Movies are here!

 

Twitter is announcing new features and changes very quickly but the advertiser trust isn’t recovering that much. It was reported that Twitter US Ad Sales are down by 5the 9%.

 

But as promised from next week, many Twitter creators will be eligible to sign up for their share of Ad revenue. Twitter is also planning to allow creators to collect the email addresses of their followers when they want to move off Twitter.

 

The biggest shift is Twitter’s plan to move its attention to video content. There have been multiple improvements to make Twitter better for video content sharing and this week Apple made a huge announcement.

 

AppleTV posted the first episode of the upcoming series Silo on their Twitter account: watch here.

 

Video is making a spark on every platform, I will suggest waiting a while and start repurposing your video content on Twitter. Twitter is a discussion space if the platform achieves a balance between video watching + tweeting. This could work!

 

Brands - Ads & PR

 

Warner Bros. Team is blowing their budgets out on marketingBarbie. Barbie’s marketing campaign isn’t a genius, It is highly relevant. With the Barbie villa on Airbnb, the Times magazine cover, and a lot of cheeky product placement. Barbie is set to kill the cinemas this year. (Link)

 

Amazon is planning to introduce Ads to prime video. We are going back to TV-style streaming with Ads, without Ads, it will be a luxury. Have your marketing spend ready!

 

Smrinoff’s new brand strategy & MISCHIEF’s cannes lions campaign are two winners of our newsletter’s best brand campaign of the month. Both are built on the idea of consumer attention-grabbing elements.

 

And this AI-targeting campaign from Nikon was one of the highlights of the month: Watch here! 

 

Advertising - Uncontrollable 💇‍♀️

 

We started with Microsoft & Google testing AI Ads from advertiser accounts without asking for permission. And we are ending the Advertising month of June with Google getting accused of misleading advertisers with Video Ads.

 

In the advertising world, AI updates are coming in quickly but not the ones to help you. Most of the updates are focused on helping you create better Ad creatives. And the development on that side isn’t that great. Yes, AI can help you regenerate copy and get new Ads on Microsoft & Google Ads.

 

But that is AI training on your existing data and Ad creatives. To progress further, you need to create new creatives yourself.

 

The second update is that keyword-targeting Ads are now available on every single platform with the launch of conversational Ads on LinkedIn. And keyword Ad targeting is expanding on TikTok & Reddit.

 

I look forward to testing keyword Ads, but this uncontrollable access to AI Ads from Google & Microsoft isn’t a good idea. They need to stay within their policies and don’t need to test Ads created for different formats.

 

Reddit - Why Is it alive?

 

It's doomsday, Tomorrow Reddit’s new API pricing goes live. While many users are still protesting and against the change. What made Reddit survive was Google!

 

Recent research has found that Google’s User experience went down as Reddit communities went on blackout. More than 50% of Google searches are unique with only user-generated content from platforms like Reddit, Twitter, and Quora ranking.

 

With Reddit being the most trustful source, many non-Reddit users visit the platform through search engines.

 

Reddit has taken an advertising revenue hit with few communities going NSFW. But it will survive, my thoughts here might look biased but put anger aside you will see Reddit users interacting with users. While other apps have gone, only media interacts with users.

 

AI - Funds & Regulation.

 

While the EU is trying its best to put AI regulations into action. And making AI content have labels to prevent disinformation. US Big Tech is launching funds for new AI startups to help them grow.

 

With Dropbox announcing their fund and Meta launching an AI community forum. Martech will be growing in the next few months.

 

Brands are asking Influencers to use AI, Adobe is helping creators do that by launching new features for AdobeFirefly.

 

Callout: I will be releasing an AI version of what changed in Marketing in Q2 2023. You find out morehere, I suggest sharing this newsletter edition to receive it early!

 

Apple Vision - Opposite of Meta

 

Apple Vision made a huge spark within the tech space and most of what we heard from Apple wasn’t pointed at Marketing.

 

But a huge product positioning lesson here. Mark Zuckerberg targeted a point through his metaverse that was too salty and the idea of Meta Quest was you went into a different universe.

 

The positioning statement scared people away. On the other hand, Apple’s statement was simply it will be part of your existing life & Apple ecosystem.

 

Meta’s failure doesn’t mean Metaverse will never succeed. Meta’s failure showcases that your passion and bias don’t matter in the real world. Mark can be seen as someone too passionate about the metaverse and people like him exist.

 

Apple went with data and market research, Understanding what consumers fear and how they can showcase their product. Not passion!

 

Pinterest - Positivity & Agency Partner

 

Pinterest continues to focus on building a safe and positive platform. Last month, I shared they made changes to the Pinterest algorithm to share more diverse and positive content.

 

This month, Pinterest released its positivity report and pledged to make its platform safe for everyone, especially teens.

 

Pinterest has ended its contract with the US-SMB team. One of our readers was part of that team: Alex Thomas was working at Pinterest for the last two years as Agency Partner Manager.

 

Alex and I have been in connection and he is a great marketer. Now, open for work. An expert at marketing & Pinterest with 5 years of experience in Sales & 7 years of experience in Marketing.

 

You can Contact Alex Thomas for marketing work!

 

Tiny Socials - Discord, Twitch & Patreon

 

These Tiny platforms made a huge spark this month. As Patreon launched a free membership option for creators.

 

The reason behind the launch matches my vision. Those algorithms are now more about serving relevant content, instead of serving a specific brand or creator. In the future, it will be hard for creators & brands to access these audiences on bigger social media platforms.

 

Discord and Twitch are seeing recent developments and more user acquisitions from creators launching their channels. And Twitch introduced a better payout to fight the rival platform “Kick”. The monetization policy of Twitch is still not that on the side of small creators. Hopefully, we see more improvements.

 

Marketing - Influencers, Budgets

 

FTC announced a new major update to its Endorsement guides for Influencers & Brands. You can read the breakdown from one & only Rob Freund, The social media lawyer.

 

Dropping your Instagram reels & TikTok Audio to 0% removes the link back to that audio. This Tiktok marketing tactic is now debunked by Bri Reynolds, SMM at Lyft.

 

Gartner launched their Budget Guide for CMOs.

This month includes a few insightful points for all marketers looking to get CMO roles in the future.

 

iOS 17 will strike back at Marketing attribution and tracking elements. As Apple looks to have more control over link tracking in Safari. (Link)

 

Everything TL;DR - Find Weekly News on Jaskaran’s Blog

 

I have a weekly updated blog on my website, where you will find the latest updates curated from my newsletter available to read on the web:

 

Marketing News of the week

 

You can bookmark it on your browser and share it with others. And all the sources are not linked here. You can find the links to all the June updates on that page. I don’t delete and add new updates, scroll by scroll to find updates of the first week, second, and then this week!

 

Jaskaran’s Latest Writings

 

 

I Ask: How do you make marketers market you?

 

Yes, I am asking you because after reading this newsletter. In case you were not planning to share this newsletter with others! I wonder what I missed?

Data shows Consumers don’t care about behind the scenes, how much time they spend on the product. If the end product isn’t fit or good enough.

 

That’s what matters, Telling you I spent hours every week writing this newsletter is salesy. In case, you liked the end product. Share this blog with other marketers.

 

Wishing you all the best for the second half of 2023!

 

Your friend,

Jaskaran Saini

 

Digital Marketing Trends June 2023: What Changed?

Tiktok News: Changes Affecting Creators & Advertisers 

 

Tiktok made major changes to its platform. With the launch of their new creator fund “creativity program beta”. They have encouraged the top 4% of creators to push more long-form content. 

 

And this push is also delivering results for Top Advertisers in the space. This fund was launched alongside a new Tiktok Ad format, PulsePremiere. These Ads currently in beta are shown after a trending piece of content. 

 

For Music Marketers & Artists, Tiktok launched #newmusic to support upcoming artists. 

 

And after that boom, we got smashed with the TikTok US state ban in Montana. There is a huge controversy around it but this news isn’t affecting marketing spend. 

 

Executional Angles 🎬

 

Tiktok’s Ad platform and creator marketplace are getting better. The updates aren’t public. I have tracked a few cheeky practices from the Tiktok product team to gather more user data and better their Ad platform. Expect better location-based targeting in the upcoming few months. 

 

For organic, With the new creator fund. Many long-form content creators are seeing an engagement hike for their content. You can experiment with long-form content as a business to connect longer with the audience. 

 

And a nice sign is TikTok is now pushing more content from “people you follow” to the For You page. As mentioned in my Tiktok marketing post, this is something new and encouraging for brands. 

 

Upcoming: Tiktok is testing an AI Chatbot similar to snapchat. This launch will help them keep users more engaged. 

Pinterest News: Affecting Organic Content

 

In April, Pinterest got into huge issues with user safety on the platform because many users were targeting young audiences. After that Pinterest made a few changes and at the beginning of May, launched their transparency report showcasing how they are filtering harmful content. 

 

A great callout here is “Gen-Z is on Pinterest”. Every single platform mentions that they have Gen-Z users on their apps to attract advertisers. But data from different research shows that Pinterest has a growing Gen-Z user base, especially for diverse and Female audiences. 

 

Bring back to the latest content ranking system and algorithm changes to Pinterest. Earlier this week, I shared this blog post from the Pinterest engineering team about the latest updates to the platform. 

 

Executional Breakdown of Algorithm 

 

First of all, how the Pinterest algorithm ranks content is very simple and it's all based on user interactivity. 

 

All different engaging elements like comments, save, share, and like give the content system a signal to rank your content for relevant topics. As revealed by their engineering team in this post and by the previous product manager at Pinterest on Lenny’s podcast. 

 

The new changes to Pinterest are very simple: 

 

Diversifying your content, Pinterest is making changes to the content system to make sure the content it ranks on the app isn’t too sensitive toward a demographic. That is why they want Pinterest businesses and creators to diversify their Pinterest boards and content strategy. 

 

This affects niches like Beauty, Fashion, and other lifestyle-related brands. Don’t try to sell the idea of clear skin or a perfect body shape. Pinterest is looking to provide a better and healthy space for young audiences. 

 

The second change is “keyword search”. In the blog post, there are mentions that the algorithm will try to show more of the content that includes identical keywords & sentence structure to “user search queries”. To promote more relevancy and better content to users. 

 

These are the main changes, I will share more on Pinterest in my upcoming blogs to help you overall with Pinterest marketing. 



Platform Changes:  Pinterest users can now add links to every single Posting format. And added a new platform analytics feature for better insights. 

Twitter News: Regaining Advertiser Trust & Bots 

 

With the new Twitter CEO coming in, One of the Top Advertisers mentioned their comeback to advertise on the Bird app. But mid-micro advertisers are still not loving the Ad platform. 

 

Besides advertising, Twitter continues to launch new services and features for Blue subscribers. And decreasing creator monetization requirements, increasing the video upload limit to 2 hours. The other focus is on attracting more advertisers to the platform. 

 

A lot going on forTwitter. But the biggest issue is that Bot spam is at its peak, removing bots was one of the biggest promises made by ElonMusk. Still not delivered. 

 

I have my fingers crossed for June. 

 

Execution Considerations: 

 

Twitter is getting better at recommending relevant tweets under the original tweets you read. And as you know it is mentioned on Github that the Twitter connection network plays a huge role in getting content discovered. 

 

I recommend refining your network and networking with the right audiences. Kinda old advice but the platform is testing new prompts related to this. That is why you should click on it. 

 

Agencies & Brand News: Who got the best campaign? 

 

Starting with the world's biggest marketing agency will get even bigger with a new partnership with Nvidia. WPP is partnering with Nvidia to use its AI technology to level up its campaigns. Link!

 

Shorty Awards took place in May and here is the full list of winners. Have a look and get inspired for next year. 

 

VCCP, a London-based creative agency, is launching an AI-creative agency. The usage of generative AI is increasing very fast and adaptation is the key now. Link!

 

This month was filled with brand and marketing events. I found a curated list of brand marketing events that took place in May. Link!

 

The New Bud Light is “The North Face”. The new campaign featuring a drag queen is catching negative attention like Budlight. Link!

 

Jaskaran: I started tracking agency news for the newsletter last week, for future monthly recaps you will find more and better recaps. 

 

Instagram News: Targeted Advertising! 

 

Believe it or not. Meta is moving fast with Instagram now. Tiktok announced their search ads will roll out slowly to marketers, and last week Meta came in clutch and announced “Instagram search Ads”. You can access them through the Instagram marketing API. Link!

 

Besides that Instagram made a huge spark as the information about a new Twitter viral came up. Meta is expected to launch a new decentralized Twitter-like app for their users in June. Many are excited about it. It could be a great opportunity for businesses as many find IG very hard to scale. 

 

Decentralized means your followers can follow you on the new app with one click. This app can help you reach more existing followers on IG & FB. 

 

Other than these two, there was a list of updates including a new creator fund announcement. But not much impacting your organic growth. 

 

PPC News: New Policies Kicking In

 

For the second half of 2023, Advertisers in the UK & EU need compliance with these new Google Ad requirements. Link!

 

Google and Walmart both took steps to make media buying and Ad creative creation easier. You can read here about Google’s new approach to media buying and how Walmart here is trying to help businesses with Ad creatives.

 

Microsoft is moving fast with Bing Chat Advertising, You can now use Chat Ads API to integrate ads within Bing AI. Link!

 

There were a few other marketing product updates for Microsoft in terms of improving targeting and utilizing AI. One of my favorites is the recent UET update to their analytics dashboard. 



For more information, I recommend revisiting our last emails & read this recent Google marketing live recap. 

 

Meta News: Data Limitations & AI for Marketers 

 

Meta is stuck. Yes, because they have developed one of the best AI languages and structures to benefit marketers. For example, this new engineering blog showcasing its new AI content structure is golden. Link!

 

At the same time, Meta is having huge issues in the EU & UK with their data usage. The platform Received a $1.2B fine and now UK representatives are limiting data usage for Meta. Good for privacy but points to a huge problem for paid media marketers. 

 

Meaning Meta’s future is bright due to AI research & frameworks but data issues are like close friends showing up every single day. 

 

Other than this, Meta is launching AI tools to help marketers create better Ad creatives. Link!

 

In April, Meta increased its involvement in AI to push organic content and in May was focused on utilizing AI for paid media offerings. 

 

Facebook: New Lead generation forms features and a few updates to Facebook reels were key product updates. 

 

WhatsApp: New Updates to WhatsApp Chat features with the addition of Chat Lock, sharing with captions & new polls feature. 



SEO News: It's all changed but…

 

With multiple announcements, Google search page structure & how content is ranked will be changing. The new interface is expected to prefer AI-generated results but for June. This new feature is opt-in, users on the desktop can choose to get AI results within a search. Changing their Google page experience. 

 

Many SEOs are predicting a 70-80% traffic drop in the upcoming months. But many experienced SEOs believe changes are good and the traffic for the future will be more quality-oriented. 

 

These insights linked below are from the best SEOs and their opinions on recent search engine marketing changes. 

 

 

The technical SEO world is going through many changes. My advice is to keep your focus on the content strategy part for a while. And improve that! 

 

Youtube Updates: New Ad Formats & Algorithm

 

After doing $40B in revenue last year. The platform announced new Ad formats at IAB Newsfront. With the launch of 30-second unskippable Ads on Connected TV. 

 

Where Youtube is headed with Unskippable Ads is the future of online movie & content streaming. Either platforms like Netflix, Hulu, and other services have to give up a share of revenue. Or they need to go back to unskippable Connected TV Ads format to pay the writers. 

 

Coming back to Youtube, Every week on their “creator insider” channel they announce various new updates. The highlight was the recent update of community post creation for all users. 

 

Partnering with Influencers and using community posts to target core audiences is one of the best strategies based on this new update.

 

Marketing Research : What Changed?

 



LinkedIn News: Continued Organic Growth 

 

As the round of layoffs is not stopping, LinkedIn is having its best time. The in-app activity continues to increase and now the platform has 930 million monthly active users, closing in on the 1 billion mark very soon. 

 

LinkedIn is embracing AI in May with new AI features to help with messaging, job descriptions, and other hiring processes. 

 

All that growth doesn’t mean everything is great. As the platform laid off 700 employees this month. 

 

Overall, LinkedIn is doing good and viewers are loving their new marketing campaign. Watch! 

 

Reddit: E-commerce World

 

I wrote about this in my updated social media trends post. Reddit is working on various new e-commerce features. 

 

While many believe that the nature of Reddit doesn’t fit e-commerce offerings. Many product reviews and conversations take place on Reddit and users get the ability to integrate products from other businesses within the content. It could work very well. 

 

Using these features to self-promote is impossible but with the right execution. It can do a charm. 

 

Others:  Reddit is going through a bot followers scam. 

 

Mini-Bites: Snapchat, Airbnb & Others





What Jaskaran Wrote: 

 

  1. How Social Media Algorithms Work 
  2. Tiktok Marketing Guide
  3. Future of Content Marketing
  4. Is Influencer Marketing Dying? Jaskaran

 

And a few other insights on my blog. I don’t send out my blogs in emails. You can bookmark it and revisit it once a week. 



May Newsletter Editions To Read: 

 

 

I hope you are now caught up with everything marketing. When not, share what I left out. It's the best way to help me do better 🌟 

Doing Sales as a Marketer

Wake up at 3 AM, take a bath and drive to an empty park to sell stuff.

 

Yes, Every once a month. I go to work with my father helping him with his business.

 

He runs a clothing business here in germany and once every month. We go to this famous marketplace to sell more than we usually do.

 

For that weekend, I go from typing online about marketing to selling products with zero marketing. Only sales led growth.

 

And it feels better. Marketing sometimes feel like  one-sided love, no one listens.

Here are two lessons I learned while talking to over 400 different customers this weekend.

 

Don’t ask, Show them

 

Customer is looking at a product, they are trying to find the sizes.

 

You opt-in for help and they say I’m just looking. No need for help.

 

This happens a lot. I ask “What size are you looking for?”. They leave.

 

And these are german consumers. Direct questions are bad for sales.

 

Because you are the selling character in the scene and many have your image in mind as someone trying to oversell.

 

That is why either be indirect or show.

 

What I did was simple, tracked what sizes they dropped and what were left. I decided to take the size they wanted and indirectly said, What do you think about this one?

 

I didn’t pitch that I have their size. I pitched I have what interests them and asked for their permission.

 

What I learned was consumer wants control of their decision. Respect that and take the permission.

 

What Brought them

 

Last year, The owner of that marketplace sold the space to a new individual and he changed few things around impacting all businesses, including my father.

 

We saw a  30% sales drop even with additions of a new product line. The same situation with other businesses, but what increased was amount of people visiting the marketplace.

 

The number of people visiting increased  by 15% and he did OOH Ads in the city for the weekend market.

 

More marketing ≠ less sales.

 

Teaching me again that, chasing more brand awareness isn’t going to help a business. It is all about reaching the right customer and bringing them to your business.

 

 

Bringing wrong audience online costs mostly money. On ground, talking to them as a salesperson can be exhausting and sometimes can make you angry.

 

That is why be precise with your marketing.

 

Find what brings the best one to the market.

 

(more…)

15+ Social Media Trends & Insights in September 2023

Social media platforms are changing every week and besides all those changes. We are constantly getting the same plagiarized advice from marketers & company blogs.

 

We kicked off 2023 with some major changes in the first quarter and these changes might impact your social media strategy or help you to create better content & strategies for your business.

 

July Update: Another quarter is over and we have a new text app launched by Instagram called “Threads”. Bringing another long-term social media trend to learn and study.

 

I’ve been able to pull these insights together as I track these changes for 10,000+ marketers every week and work everyday to help businesses do better at social. 

 

And this post is part of my on-going content series “one-stop”. Here you will find the latest social media trends & insights from company officials, insiders & marketers added consistently. 

 

I don’t want to give you the crappy stuff, only valuable data backed Trends & insights regarding social media marketing. To begin with: 

 

Tiktok is no-longer about short form content 

 

You heard it right, TikTok is shifting its company goals & testing new ideas to shift the focus from short focus content to long form. 

 

With the launch of “Creativity Program Beta” TikTok aims to make creators post content with a length of 1 min or more. And asks you to post original content on the platform, less trends & more originality. 

 

Since the launch of this new type of creator fund, many creators have started experiencing fluctuations in organic reach when they post content within 15-30 seconds. 

 

The platform wants a long period of user attention and that’s why it is pushing creators to be more original & share long form content. 

 

This shows a demand trend in long form content that makes people stick for longer periods & TikTok can integrate Ads within the content. 

 

Another factor showing Tiktok isn’t the king of Short form content anymore. We have a trend regarding YouTube Shorts growing faster than Reels & Tiktok. The ban regarding Tiktok making a highlight in March also helped Youtube Shorts get the attention of creators & businesses to start publishing more content on Youtube. 

 

Overall both of these trends have contributed to this point of TikTok shifting focus to have creators & businesses create long form engaging content. 

Monthly Update: This month of June, Tiktok has been embracing AI. As there were tweaks of an AI chatbot coming to the platform. And Tiktok also launched an AI Ad Script generator. The AI fever on TikTok is here!

 

Twitter’s New Algorithm 

 

Since 31st March, Twitter “For You” feed algorithm is live on Github and available for anyone to access & track the updates regarding the algorithm changes. A move Elon musk made to showcase transparency at twitter. 

 

But at the same time, we got to learn how the algorithm is changed & works in 2023. 

 

First, Pay for reach on Twitter is a thing. As studying the algorithm we learn that Twitter Blue subscribers get more reach than regular users on the “For You” feed. 50% of the content on “For You” is recommendations and 50% from people you follow. And from that data to reach the 50% new people & get your content pushed by twitter automatically. Then, Twitter Blue will help you. 

 

Second, But still the most impactful factors affecting your organic reach are Likes & retweets; these boost your organic reach by 10-20x compared to a factor like Comments. 

 

Third, Algorithm labels tweets from Elon Musk & tracks various accounts + topics continuously. And that indicates to us that respectable sources & accounts on twitter might have a better chance of getting their content seen. That’s why new brands should always build their authority on Twitter first. 

 

Fourth, Outbound links are hated. This trend of Social Media Networks hating outbound links to websites & blogs is not new. And we got confirmation about this through Twitter’s source code. I believe this is a gentle reminder that always put outbound links in comments to make sure the reach of your best tweets don’t drop. 

 

These were some new insights & updates regarding the Twitter algorithm. Twitter is constantly changing and I hope a new algorithm revealed will help a lot. 

Monthly Update: Twitter started june with focus on Video content features after they hired their new CEO. And now they have introduced long-video uploading features, playback speed. And working on various new options like screensharing, Background video player & more.

+ from July, there are chances most big creators will start seeing their earnings from Twitter Reply Ads.

 

BeReal is Dying like Clubhouse 

 

You can still find posts about “Social Media Trends in 2023” and they might’ve a whole point of mentioning that BeReal is the best platform in 2023. But unfortunately they were wrong, The BeReal growth trend is decreasing from the past few months. 

 

And the amount of time users spend on BeReal is also less than all social media platforms in the Industry. If this wasn’t enough BeReal announced that they don’t have a plan to start advertising on the platform. 

 

How will they survive? Well, it is about culture & the brand messaging of transparency. The App still blends into Gen-Z culture & teenagers are using the app to connect with their friends. The audience is very identical to Snapchat. 

 

But the issue here is that culture attracts new people slowly. That’s the reason Snapchat pays creators more money than Youtube & TikTok to stay on Snapchat & share exclusive content. This opportunity is available for BeReal too. But they don’t have a consistent flow of revenue to pay creators to stay on the platform. 

 

Overall, BeReal is all about Brand Messaging & Culture now. The platform is still in a transition phase to be a marketing channel for businesses & creators. 

 

AI Content Recommendations on Facebook & LinkedIn 

 

Your Circle of connections on LinkedIn will make a huge impact on how your content is suggested to other people. As in march, LinkedIn announced that there will be an increase in suggested posts with help of AI & algorithms. 

 

You will be seeing more posts that your connections interacted with in some way like liking the post or commenting on it. For Creators & businesses, this means that build a useful LinkedIn connection network as your content will be suggested to right people through this small tactic. 

 

About Facebook, In Meta’s Earning Report 2022 we learned that use of AI to recommend users new content has increased at Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg said that the usage of AI is keeping users more engaged. 

 

This increased usage of AI on Facebook points us at that it is important to create clear & quality content targeted towards your current audience/followers. The algorithm first analyzes those engaging user profiles and then recommends new users. 

 

Proving us that the network of creators & followers you have + how they engage with your content impact growth. And the impact is about to increase in 2023. 

May Update : In the new Meta earnings call, They mentioned they are now going to double on AI recommended content.

 

June Update:  LinkedIn announced one of the biggest content creation feature yet. You will be able to generate a complete linkedIn post out of a minimum text limit of 30 words. Then, Generative AI will be able to create more text of that quick insight from you. LinkedIn is about to get more cringe.

 

And there were many other LinkedIn AI changes announced in month of June, these updates are going to change LinkedIn Trends later this year. You can read all other updates here!

 

Edutainment content is Changing 

 

In 2021-22 we saw an increase in creation of edutainment content because social media brands were advised to stop product posting & provide more value to people for free. 

 

But now everyone is doing that especially on Text focused Content platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn & reddit. Edutainment Content isn’t enough if you’re doing “how-to” or “Tips” content for your audience. 

 

Because the standards are now higher since the launch of ChatGPT. Regular Educational content isn’t what people are demanding. They are asking for “How I” & “Journey” content that depicts how different things helped you. 

 

Educational content on social media now requires a person of subject that people connect with or you provide better educational content than AI. 

 

In both ways, Educational content in 2023 is demanding more than just value. You need to add other elements like brand values, storytelling & Personas to this type of content to have success.

 

And then structure your social media sales funnel, accordingly to your content strategy for different social media platforms like TikTok & Pinterest.

 

Creators can’t make everyone buy impulsively 

 

It’s not 2020 anymore, people aren’t new to the world of Influencers. They are realizing that Influencers aren’t using the products they promote if they only did one-time mention of the product. The market is booming, creators are getting more and more brand deals. But Users are also getting pitched 10 different products by the same influencer/creator in a span of 30 days. 

 

That’s why we are seeing a rise in #deinfluence on Tiktok & Instagram, Real-time Product users are informing others about products & creator marketing. This new trend showcases brands that are viral due to great marketing but actually have a bad reputation for their product lines. #deinfluence is a fair warning for brands to not spend money before validating user reviews & product. 

 

The Creator market isn’t just a free ticket to go viral, it can backfire too. It has changed. What Big brands are doing is something different from newbies in social influencer marketing. 

 

They are finding creators that find their products valuable & actually use them. And brands are working with them for a long period to have an impact on the audience. These are generally micro-influencers. Regarding Big influencers, brands are experimenting with audiences & signing up deals that build a relationship between products & creators. 

 

The days of working with an influencer with a million followers and getting orders are gone. You need strategies on how your social media presence is influenced through influencers to gain profit in the long term. 



The new Instagram isn’t Organic but helpful

 

The organic growth on Instagram isn’t increased but it is neutralized. As far as I know after certain statements from January, we know the platform worked on some changes to fix organic reach issues across all media formats. And now we have better chances of growing through Imagery content too, like IG reels. 

 

Why I mentioned helpful is that the Instagram team & CEO are informing SMBs and creators consistently about certain elements of marketing on Instagram. 

 

First, Instagram doesn’t deprioritise your content if edited in TikTok, Capcut or other editing apps. But recommends you to stop using watermarks on your content. 

 

Second, Instagram’s CEO confirmed Hashtags don’t impact engagement that much. And I also shared why in my “one-stop” Instagram guide. 

 

Engagement is different from reach, by engagement Adam meant interactions you get from your existing followers & audience. Hashtags don’t impact that, but hashtags may impact organic reach on your post if they are relevant to content you post. 

 

Third, Instagram’s new hidden university “Instagram University” for creators is a program 

that is led by Employees & experts at Instagram to help creators. And many students have revealed that keyword research is an important factor to make your Instagram content do better. That’s why focus on searchable keywords & include them in your posts. 

 

After reading this, don’t go searching “Instagram university” on google. There is another course by a fake guru with the same name “Instagram University” and you might get spammed if you sign up for that course. The official course is for US creators & Businesses only with invite access. 

 

Overall, Instagram Team is trying to educate people about marketing on IG and busting the myths about the platform. 

 

Monthly Update: The organic Reach can make a comeback with Instagram broacasts rolled out globally. I am using this new community sharing feature to utilise most of  IG, and getting more engagement for my content + clients. As it is a great content distribution source for creators & businesses.

Social Listening is more Important than Posting 

 

I certainly believe we are now on the opposite sides of social media marketing. If you're a new business in the world of social media marketing and just started focusing. You are still on the regular side of brands trying to build a social media presence. And you can risk a lot to generate brand awareness for your business. 

 

If you are established and have a brand presence on social media. But now focused on the next step or level of brand awareness, it is important to take a step back & start listening. 

 

Listen to the conversations already happening around your business & what people are saying about your business, content and products. Is it positive or negative? Maybe there is something that needs to be improved. 

 

Before you chase the next viral post, understanding the state of your social media presence is crucial. Because you don’t want to go viral and see your existing audience talk bad about you in the comments of that piece of content. It impacts your social brand image & also leaves a bad impression on a potential new audience. 

 

That’s before you go on your next viral adventure, keep track of your social audience. Listen & talk to them about your brand & their concerns. Social media is also about social understanding! 

 

Don’t press publish without listening. 

 

Ad Tracking Changes In Europe 

 

As of April 2023, EU users of Instagram & Facebook can opt out of Ad tracking & they will no longer be served personalized Ads. And this change can impact Ad targeting in Europe pretty heavily. 

 

What does this mean for social media advertisers? This can generate a big push towards better market research & Ad creatives to convert the audiences besides the major targeting changes. A better job needs to be done on the Marketing side. 

 

A small tip for Advertisers is running Ads through Influencer Accounts with access to Paid partnerships, they can target look alike audiences of that influencer to have a better conversion rate in Facebook Ads manager. 

 

Overall we will see how the Ad targeting is impacted with this new change & how many users will opt out of the Ad tracking system. 

 

Gen Z Users aren’t loyal 

 

A report by McKinsey shows that Gen-Z aren’t loyal like other generations. They will switch up to another brand if they are cheap or a better option. Besides having a favorite brand they love. 

 

What does this mean for social media marketers? Many Brands ignore their competitors like they aren’t even in their market. But they are and your audience on social media knows them too. 

 

What Gen-Z behavior shows us is a need to provide informative content about your industry & products consistently to have a better chance of keeping them tied up with your brand. 

 

A less informative consumer is a wanderer and that’s why you need to inform them consistently. 

Try to do that through Instagram stories, BTS Tiktok content & Community forums/chats. 

 

This small move to inform your customers consistently will change your social game & make the audience more loyal. 

 

AR is changing Retail & VR is still slow

 

AR filters are bringing a huge change to retail & DTC markets. The change isn’t on a huge level, but a report from Snapchat suggests that AR filters help shoppers make easier buying decisions. 

 

By launching AR filters for brands, through the usage marketers learn a lot about the average consumer of their product. 

 

Regarding VR, the growth has slowed down while among Fashion Brands it continues to grow. Brands like Tommy Hilfiger and H&M are still doing Metaverse events to keep the users engaged. 

 

But on a higher level with Meta & Google slowing down & shifting their focus from VR products to AI & advertising. We are seeing a slow down in the use of VR to connect with social audiences. 

 

Also with Snapchat’s Ad business slowing down in Q4 2022, what we have now is a neutral state for AR & VR trends on social media. But I’m pretty sure these trends will grow back in the next few quarters. 

 

Meme Marketing on the rise 

 

Since the TikTok takeover, meme marketing is growing at a faster rate and now is part of social media strategies to get new eyeballs on the business. 

 

But there is also an issue regarding meme marketing, most memes originate from different internet cultures & people. And established brands always need approval from legal teams to jump on meme trends. As the brands will be profiting from the attention gained through that meme. 

 

Now you aren’t copying the whole meme, there is new original content added by your team. Not in every case, but in a few cases you might need to get copyrights to use the meme. Especially when you use the meme post to run Ads. 

 

You will not get sued for your meme post on a brand/business account. I only want you to be informed about the benefits & consequences. 

 

Meme marketing is growing very fast on Tiktok as the platform rewards broad content that everyone finds relatable. That’s why most big brands like Microsoft, Duolingo, Hilton & many others are jumping on meme marketing trends to find new audiences & get more reach on social media. 

 

And on other platforms like Instagram, reddit & Twitter meme marketing always works. The impact is short but research shows brands associated with humor are more memorable to consumers. 

 

Pay for Social Media 

 

Besides Tiktok & Pinterest, we now have paid subscriptions features on every other social media platform. Have a look at the number of platforms offering premium options: 

 

 

One of the reasons people agreed to pay for new Meta paid subscriptions is account security & Identity verification. Having a look at Twitter Blue, we have more than 50% Blue subscribers with less than 1,000 followers. 

 

For Twitter & Meta people are paying to have a better experience on the platform & feel their data is secure. Yes, both platforms have promised more reach to paid users. But the impact on growth will be less and more on maintaining a healthy presence on these platforms. 

 

That’s why brands & creators are also opting in for these subscriptions to make sure it is easy to find their business & account when there are fake bot accounts scamming users on these platforms. 

 

On other platforms, Snap, LinkedIn, YouTube & Discord. Users are signing up for extra benefits to enjoy limited features of the platform. 

 

Pay for Social Media isn’t a bad trend. But it is an exit strategy for these companies as Data laws are getting strict, Advertising business is slowing. 

 

If Meta & Twitter introduced Ad free Pla  like Reddit premium, the impact of “Pay for Social Media” will be seen among advertisers & PPC marketers. But for now Meta has confirmed there are no updates regarding a new Ad free plan. Elon on other hand shared that Twitter might offer a high priced version of Twitter blue offering an Ad-free experience. 

 

No need to fear for now if you advertise on these platforms. “Pay for Social Media” is a wise Investment for your business in 2023. 

 

Owning Your Social Media Traffic 

 

Besides Instagram now allowing upto 5 links in your profile & LinkedIn last year releasing Links button for posts. Data shows that traffic from social media platforms remains flat and is dying slowly. 

 

And around 30-40% of the traffic on social media platforms is directed towards each other. Facebook’s widely viewed content reports are released every quarter. And in the last two quarters, most traffic driven to a link was for a Youtube video & a Tiktok. And the top 20 most visited links are either Youtube, IG or Tiktok. You can see the majority of traffic is going to the social media brands. 

 

This slow death of social media traffic is affecting publishers the most. With Buzzfeed News dying & Vice is looking to fill for bankruptcy. When we track trends, we see their traffic from social media is slowly dying. And SEO traffic also remained flat. 

 

What it means for businesses & creators online is, how the internet works is changing. Someone viewing your content or visiting your website is not that much of a value. 

 

You have to own your social media traffic at a place where you have better control over your ideal audience. That is why Newsletters, forums & Communities are becoming the new norm for media businesses. And your business should also adapt to it. 

 

Why? Because regular Information is available today in so much abundance. No one wants to only read, they want to interact on that piece of content. 

The average user experience required to fulfill is changing, the bar is going higher. 

 

It is time to find new ways and formats to own your social media traffic and provide your space to those people. Then, they will learn your purpose and share your business with others. 

 

In some way, we are going back to basics of marketing, growing from word of mouth. But the road to reach that growth is extended because the paths are changing.

 

State of Reddit: New E-commerce Wave

 

Reddit is making a lot of effort to differentiate themselves from all other social media platforms. Even though other social media users view redditors differently from years, redditors might experience a change in upcoming months.

 

 

If you are unfamiliar, Reddit have a set of different teams to grow their offerings to marketers and businesses.

 

 

Karmalabs Team at Reddit have the job to work with agency clients and brands to run Advertising & partnership campaigns. These teams are also expanding globally and reddit is working on future of its Ad business.

 

The second team is RedditX, this team isn’t that public like Karmalabs. There are various leaks about this team works on future of reddit like upcoming changes &  new product offerings.

 

The team worked on Reddit Talks previously and the new highlight is the team working on e-commerce features. Yes, integrating e-commerce into reddit might sounf strange to many.

 

 

But my experience as a reddit user is I get my fashion & product advise off this app. And I can see reddit offering businesses “shops” feature. A feature like this will allow reddit users to embed prdoucte into their comments.

 

 

Yes, reddit user is very much against self-promotion. But we aren’t talking about e-commerce from that angle. Because that is very hard to implement.

 

 

But Reddit having a Meta like  e-commerce checkout and product tagging features will improve the user experience.

 

June Update: Reddit went through a 48 hour blackout this month with 8,000+ sub-reddits protesting against them. Why protest? Reddit is going to charge developers & AI tech to use its API integration. Those APIs till today were free to use and loved by many. But now, the quick change is here.

 

 

While reddit now is back to growth timeline. But the change broke user trust in the social media platform. Many communities & users are still protesting against them in different ways.

 

This is a similar situation to Twitter’s API changes, developers hated it. Twitter didn’t die, most protestors came back. An equivalent playout will be seen in the case of Reddit.

 

What It means for Reddit Marketers: 

 

 

This reddit blackout will have a major effect over reddit advertising offerings, as the conversations in every sub-reddit shifted. And many reddit communities transitioned from Safe for work to Not safe for work communities.

 

 

All that change will cause a problem for advertisers. On other hand, Organic reddit marketing remains unharmed. As those community discussions never stopped.

 

 

In June 2023, Reddit remains one of my personal favourite Social listening platform. And it is because, amid the blackout, I was able to use the app for social listening & building buyer identities using Reddit conversations.

 

 

I stand in solidarity with reddit users, third-party developers & moderators, as I have my own tiny marketing community. I hope for the best in terms of Reddit’s growth as a social media platform & information source.

 

 

MrBeast Content Cloning

 

 

The latest social media trend among brands & creators is to steal the attention of MrBeast in multiple ways to build their social media channels. And finally MrBeast has spoken about this change in the creative business space.

 

 

 

The MrBeast Formula works, but rethink before hijacking another big Youtuber or Brand’s awareness for your own social media growth. Because that doesn’t build your messaging. It only speaks to that X audience of Brand or Creator you are hijacking for growth purposes.

 

 

MrBeast is now talking about not going on any podcasts other than Colin and samir to share his lessons. As often, his strategies are used incorrectly and young creators are losing that creativity trying to replicate him.

 

 

And he is right, Algorithms have made creator seek shortcuts to come up and build their followings. This is somewhat not that harmful for creators, for businesses don’t use these strategies as the future of social media is all about attention. And you will have a hard time converting audiences into buyers off attention content.

 

+ What I think about attention content is similar to internships. You offer to work for free and do more hard work to get the job & opportunities. Just to realise later that it wasn’t worth your time & energy. Decision is yours, you have to be careful. Don’t use MrBeast as an escape or viral hack on social media.

 

 

This has to be the worst social media trend of 2023 so far!

 

Behavioural Design

A neglected part of social media strategy is design, the social media user interface changes happen more frequently today. But talking to marketers on reddit & social, most of them never change post design or minor content layouts. In Behavioural design, simple act of nudging or adding new text or design elements can cause a change.

For Example, Instagram adding collections to “Instagram Saves” was a behavioural design experiment to encourage users to save more content. Because after that users became more categorised and curated. Or Instagram moving ‘copy link’ from a design where that old button was alone, now all sharing options are tied together. Why aren’t you changing structures of your content? The ideas and words inside them change but how the design encourages others to like doesn’t.

 

Work on that, experiment with simple ideas as adding ‘like’ emoji within your caption or carousel. Or always having small prompts in your video content, at the top of it or the bottom. Experiment design, track behaviour. I suggest reading this free guide to learn more about behavioural design for social media.

 

A list of 120+ Marketing Updates In April 2023 (Bonus: 10 Free Reports)

This is a monthly recap from The Social Juice  newsletter. I tracked every single marketing & social media update/news that could impact your business in May 2023.

I hope this quick TL;DR recap will help you do better marketing & at the end. You will find 28 Marketing Reports & free resources to help you with these changes



 


 


 


Tiktok News



Instagram Updates



Meta News



LinkedIn Updates



Google Search &  Ad News



Twitter News



Youtube News



Pinterest News



Snapchat News



Reddit Updates



Microsoft News



Advertising News



Marketing News



Top Marketing Resources of April 2023 


    

  1. Harvard: New Research on how people feel about paid social media.
    2. 

  2. Tools : These are the most essential digital marketing tools.
    3. 

  3. Collaboration : A new report talking about state of creative collaboration in 2023
    4. 

  4. SEO : A roundup of major SEO & search updates occurred in March.
    5. 

  5. AI: The Content Marketing Expert “Rand Fishkin” shared insights on AI content.
    6. 

  6. Guide: This new GTM guide for marketers is a must read.
    7. 

  7. Reddit: The platform published transparency report to showcase user behaviour & activity.
    8. 

  8. consumers : The spending within Mobile games from consumers was up 30% in Q1 2023.
    9. 

  9. Paid Social: What People think about Paying for Social Media Platform Services.
    10. 

  10. SEO : A new report about changes in importance of different SEO ranking factors.
    11. 

  11. Adobe : The platform shared new report on Digital Trends 2023.
    12. 

  12. SaaS : An Extensive Research on Best Design & Headline Examples from B2B SaaS Websites.
    13. 

  13. AI: Forbes conducted a new research in AI & how Americans look at AI.
    14. 

  14. Business: How 3-star reviews impact online businesses.
    15. 

  15. LinkedIn : A new report suggesting best LinkedIn Ad practices.
    16. 

  16. Ad Spend: A new report on upcoming Ad spending predictions about Tiktok & others.
    17. 

  17. Social Media: Amazon & other partners publish new data on social media & audio.
    18. 

  18. Youtube: A new study on Youtube Shorts Algorithm.
    19. 

  19. Marketing: A collection of marketing slides from the Brighton SEO event from this week.
    20. 

  20. LinkedIn: The platform published a new B2B buyer report for marketers.
    21. 

  21. Marketing: A new report from Gartner showcasing Marketing decisions made recently in a slow market.
    22. 

  22. Social Media : Hubspot shared its yearly State of social media report in partnership with Brandwatch.
    23. 

  23. Data: How To Get your audience to give you data for marketing.
    24. 

  24. TikTok: A new guide from TikTok to help you run better creator/influencer campaigns on the platform.
    25. 

  25. TV: A report on State of viewership and how Tiktok is influencing it.
    26. 

  26. Advertising: A guide to paid Google Ads published by Anya Gildner.
    27. 

  27. Video : A new interview with Justin Halsall talking about using video for marketing purposes.
    28. 

  28. Trends: Pinterest’s new Wedding Trends Report 2023 in partnership with Zola.
    29. 

  29. Media Business: I loved this analysis of where media world is heading.
    30. 



 


Best Paid Report of the April: 


ChatGPT and Generative AI for Social Media Marketing


Social media managers and their agency partners who are responsible for social marketing are able to quickly develop content for a long list of platforms and navigate ever-changing rules and tools. Of the responsibilities these managers face, generative AI could help most with brand marketing, creative development, and customer service. The most promising use cases for the tools are in kick-starting the creative process, creating assets, and repurposing content.


However, when navigating this new technology, there are limitations to keep in mind prior to a full rollout. Generative AI is not plug-and-play and requires training as well as a great deal of oversight. It also won’t resolve the biggest pain points of keeping up with evolving formats, new platforms, and algorithm changes. Additionally, due to the negative perception from consumers, it is unlikely that they will be receptive and trusting of generative AI use in social media.


Since this technology is evolving quickly, some companies feel like they’ll be left behind if they


don’t experiment. Want to learn more about actionable steps for brand-side social media leaders and the agencies that support them? Click here to purchase this report directly from Insider Intelligence.