Going Viral on LinkedIn, the Future of the Workforce, Instagram Links, Early 2000s Movie Remakes, and Learning Midjourney from The SUM
Since the onset of publishing, The SUM, on a biweekly basis in 2022, I missed last week by a small margin. However, it was a necessary delay to announce a new position at ePlus inc. as a Marketing Manager.
This was done through an acquisition announced on Monday, May 1, so if you're curious, here's the entire press release.
What does this mean for me? It's "business as usual" for myself and for the company. In a professional capacity, I will continue to focus on good content, creative strategies, and facilitate demand generation for the sales team focused on the "service provider" segment—exclusively a B2B marketing role. Looking forward to what the future holds!
And no, this will not interfere with writing and researching in the wee hours of the morning to publish this newsletter. Educating yourself never stops, you can only evolve and make time to learn new things. If you're not continuously learning, you're behind. Stay educated and make change happen.
Side Note: If you're a Grammarly super-fan or super-user, you can now apply to become a Brand Ambassador and join The Grammarly Collective! It's a great opportunity with great people (shoutout to Emma Wyatt ) and you get to join our awesome Slack channel.
In this newsletter, you'll find:
Leave a comment at the bottom if you learned something, hated
something, or just want to say what's up.
Going Viral on LinkedIn Boils Down to Follower and Connection Counts
“LinkedIn is not designed for virality,” according to a recent?LinkedIn?engineering blog, Viral spam detection at LinkedIn. That’s an interesting statement because, as industry experts, job seekers, and content creators, everyone is trying to produce the next viral post.
That said, they shared a performance workflow indicating the biggest factors contributing to a “viral” post, contributing to how the engineers behind the scenes combat spam.
The three main criteria for virality are:
The Author of a LinkedIn Post (i.e. You)
The author of a post is the foundation of the performance analysis. The follower count and connections, location, and industry diversity play a big role in where and how the author is positioned and perceived on the LinkedIn popularity scale.
When you talk about followers and connections, you have to point out that the “follow-for-follow” trend of Twitter and Instagram is not penalized, like Twitter does in its algorithm. You only see the total Follower counts on LinkedIn, but “500+ connections” is the default for connections. This sets the stage for an invisible “connect-for-follow” (C4F) hack to inflate your followers.
Yes, you can opt-out of following a new connection request. However, it’s automatically suggested when you’re notified of the request, so most members hit the button to connect and follow without a second thought.
The Velocity of Reactions and Engagement
The C4F hack is important because the velocity of reactions and engagements will increase with more followers, which gives LinkedIn algorithms the green light for virality and reach expansion. This velocity of interaction literally means “velocity of likes, reactions, shares, comments, and views.” This is also where LinkedIn sees a cascading effect happen to posts on the network. If you’ve inflated your follower count through connection blasting, your velocity will obviously increase with your follower count.
To wrap this up, you can take the high road and create awesome content that LinkedIn members and your true followers and connections will love. Or you can take the slimy low road and inflate your follower account by connecting with every suggested connection you’re fed.
Disrupting the Future of Industry and the Workforce with AI
Online learning company, Chegg, reports 5% drop in subscribers. Learners are frequently turning to generative AI for help, queue ChatGPT, Bard, and GrammarlyGO.
IBM announces a hiring freeze, primarily for 7,800 back-office jobs within administrative-based, clerical, and human resource roles. Yet, the WEF predicts demand for "humans" with experience in technology, data analytics, and cybersecurity will grow. ??
Goldman Sachs and the World Economic Forum predict 25% of the entire job market will be effected by AI in the next 5 years. Golden noted an alarming 300 million jobs could be lost or diminished by disruptive chatbots. Read the entire World Economic Forum "Future of Jobs Report 2023" via PDF here. More on this below. ??
WEF's Predictions for the Fastest-Growing Jobs and the Fastest Declining Jobs
Despite alarming statistics and predictions cited in the?World Economic Forum's "Future of Jobs Report" 2023, the WEF did note an upside and higher demand in certain sectors.
Fastest-Growing Roles Over the Next 5 Years
If you're into sustainability or cybersecurity, you'll be okay. Large-scale job growth is also expected in agriculture, education, and digital commerce and trade. If you're a high school guidance counselor, start pointing your students in this direction.
Fastest-Declining Roles Over the Next 5 Years
None of the these declining roles should come as a surprise. Automation and technology have already removed the human component of bank tellers at some branches across the United States. You step into the bank to withdraw money from a smiling, human bank teller, but you're met by the face of a sad, standalone ATM. Then, you're pissed you got out of your vehicle in the first place...
Instagram Links Will Hurt Platforms Like Linktree
Anyone who knows me knows I've never been a big fan of?Linktree. Any chance to consult with a client who used?linktr.ee/insert-name, I'd suggest:
"Build a landing page on your own website with the linked content to keep that organic traffic on your domain."
Why add another party to the funnel? Be greedy about your traffic.
While convenient and filling a gaping hole for influencers, e-commerce, realtors, musicians, etc., the problem was diverting traffic to a standalone page where the probability of losing the traffic amid an extra step increases.
But Zuckerberg has (finally) implemented the ability to insert 5 unique links into your?Instagram?profile. It's only available on mobile for now. ??
TikTok, Twitter, and other social channels should follow suit—like they do for everything else.
Exploring Early 2000s Movie Remakes in Midjourney
Warner Bros. announced it’s bringing back the Harry Potter saga as an episodic series on (HBO) Max, and now, Lionsgate is revamping the Twilight quartet as a retelling or new narrative based off the source material.
There are so many “other” award-winning novels (and book series) to option and so many scripts to green light, yet Hollywood continues to go back to the well of regurgitated past successes.
Next up, they’ll announce they’re creating a new series for The Hunger Games and we’ll be right back to the dystopian cycle of cinema.
***After writing this initial blurb, The Hunger Games did in fact release a new trailer for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds, a prequel to the originally trilogy. It's not a full remake of the same story... but still.
The World of Midjourney: A "Quick Start" Guide
Here's a "Quick Start" guide for exploring?Midjourney?and its potential to reshape your content strategy.
You can poo-poo generative AI art, and you can talk about the implications and lawsuits to stem from its ability to scrape the internet, mash together images, and create something unique by analyzing what's been done before. However, you cannot deny how efficient it is and how much time it can save you as a content creator.
I prefer?Midjourney. For those of you who are unfamiliar with?Discord, it's going to feel overwhelming, thus the guide. There are alternatives, like DALL-E, but what comes out of Midjourney has a certain stylistic quality that's appealing to my personal preferences.
Go try it out if you haven't.
The SUM is derived from industry news and insights related to marketing, copywriting, advertising, branding, web best practices, and more. If you enjoyed The SUM, subscribe for biweekly updates or follow?Zach Burger?for content that doesn't miss a beat.
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