The Bolt: Digital Tools for Concrete Results

Inside this issue:

• ? ChatGPT Finds its Voice and Browsing Capability
• ?? Meta’s still on top
• ?? YouTube got some new tools for us
• ?? Stop wasting ad budget on views and clicks

Hey ??

Welcome back to The Bolt.

In this edition, we’re getting into AI (again), top performing social media platforms, new YouTube updates and more…

Anyway, let’s get to it!

? ChatGPT Finds its Voice and Browsing Capability

This is without a doubt the most important update to ChatGPT since… 6 days ago ??

In case you missed it, last week ChatGPT announced a new feature where you can ask the chatbot what you want it to do using just your voice, which is an incredible time saver.

You can now also show it what you’re talking about by uploading an image.

Later in the week, however, OpenAI (the team behind ChatGPT) announced an even BIGGER update.

ChatGPT can now browse the Internet… ??

In other words, ChatGPT can fetch live web results using Bing, creating an avenue for real-time information retrieval directly within conversations. This feature enables the AI to pull in current data, contextualising its responses with the most recent information available online.

So, where might this be useful?

• Competitor Monitoring: Stay ahead by keeping an eye on competitors' digital activities, recent projects, or announcements. The real-time data retrieval can provide invaluable insights into market dynamics, helping to refine your marketing strategies.

• Market Trend Analysis: Quickly identify and respond to emerging market trends by analysing real-time data. This could be particularly useful in content creation, ensuring your social media posts or blog articles are topical and resonate with your audience.

• Project Updates: Showcase your brand's projects in real-time on social media or your website. The ability to pull in live data can help in creating a more engaging narrative around the progress and success of your projects.

• Customer Engagement: Engage with your audience by providing real-time answers to their queries. Whether it's about a particular construction material, technique, or your brand's projects, being able to provide immediate, updated information could enhance customer trust and engagement.

• Enhanced Reporting: Generate more accurate and up-to-date reports for clients or internal stakeholders by leveraging the real-time data retrieval capabilities of this technology.

Note: You can only browse the Internet on ChatGPT’s paid-for 4.0 version, but it should be coming to the free version pretty soon too.

Exciting stuff? ??

?? Meta’s still on top?

With so many social media platforms to choose from, which should construction brands be winning on?

A fresh look at the Monthly Active Users (MAU) and Daily Active Users (DAU) reveals some compelling insights:

• Facebook continues to dominate with a vast user base of 3.03 billion MAU
• YouTube is next with over 2.5 billion MAU
• Just behind YouTube is Instagram and TikTok with 2 billion MAU and 1.5 billion MAU, respectively
• Coming in towards the bottom is X (Twitter), with a lowly 550 million MAU in comparison

Interestingly, Facebook has seen good growth recently, with the ‘maturing’ platform making somewhat of an unexpected comeback.

So what are the takeaways?

• Diversify your efforts: Extend your brand's presence across various platforms to tap into diverse audience segments?
• Engagement is all: Foster a community around your brand by engaging with your audience regularly through comments, polls, video replies etc.
• Trendy TikTok: With TikTok matching Instagram's stride, consider harnessing its creative potential to showcase your brand in a new light
• Upcoming unveilings: With each platform vying for your attention, make sure to keep an eye out for new features and updates across these platforms that could further empower your brand's digital discourse (subscribe to The Bolt and we’ll be sure to let you know ??)

Construction brands have a huge spectrum of platforms to choose from, each with unique merits. Whether it's engaging with a professional audience on LinkedIn or showcasing your creative side on TikTok, the digital sky is the limit!

?? YouTube got some new tools for us

Yay, YouTube has given us new tools to play with… ??

There's a video editor to help make our videos look awesome, a smart music finder to get the perfect tunes, and a dubbing tool to help our videos speak different languages!

Here's what we can do now:

• Using YouTube Create (essentially YouTube’s version of CapCut), we can now edit videos right from our phones, making them shorter or longer, or even adding funny captions and voices
• If you need music, there's a helper that can find just the right song for the video. Like, if you want a calming song for a chill video about screwdrivers, it'll find one for you.
• And there's also a new tool named Aloud that can automatically create translations in other languages, which you can review before adding to your video. It’s currently in test form and should roll out more widely next year.

Now, there’s almost no excuse for your brand not being on YouTube…?

?? Stop wasting ad budget on views and clicks

Imagine you're handling advertising for a construction brand like Caterpillar.?

You want to use Meta Ads (Facebook Ads) to drive potential customers to your website.?

Now, you might think getting lots of clicks or landing page views is a good thing, right??

However, we and marketing expert, Jon Loomer, think otherwise.

Why?

When you set your ads to get more clicks or views, what Meta (Facebook) really does is try to find the cheapest way to get those clicks. Sounds good initially, but here's the catch.

Not everyone clicking on your ad is a potential customer. Some might just be curious clickers, or worse, bots and even competitors snooping around. So, a lot of those clicks won’t translate to actual interest in buying your construction machinery or services.

Now, instead of chasing clicks, Loomer suggests a smarter approach: He recommends setting up custom events on your website, like tracking how far down someone scrolls on a page, or if they click on product links.?

These actions show a deeper interest compared to just a mere click on your ad.

For instance, if someone spends time checking out different excavator models on your Caterpillar website, that's a sign of genuine interest, right?

So, by tweaking your Meta Ads to track these custom events, you’ll be targeting people who are genuinely interested in what Caterpillar has to offer.?

Over time, this approach could lead to better results with your ads, connecting you with serious buyers rather than just casual clickers.?

And that’s a smarter way to spend your advertising ￡￡￡!

?? Rounding off The Bolt?

Arguably our favourite part of The Bolt, here’s some stories from around the world of marketing to keep you feeling inspired ??

• #1: TikTok & Google collab? Interesting updates as TikTok is testing displaying links to Google search results
• #2 Links are not a top 3 Google Search ranking factor, according to Gary Illyes, an analyst on the Google Search team
• #3 Carefull! Google may be indexing your conversations with Bard, so be wary if you’re giving it personal information about your brand…
• #4 Need multiple Facebook profiles? Facebook now allows that.?
• #5 Google released some new SEO updates in its September update.?

?? See you next time on the 16th of October!

That’s it for the 13th edition of The Bolt!

We’ll see you in 2 weeks on Monday 16th of October with issue #014.

As always, hit subscribe and if there’s anybody in your network that you would like to see this, then tag them in the comments or forward it on.

Sara and the team at Expert Trades

www.experttrades.com

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