?? Google's 7 Commandments for AI Content

GM nerds ??

Welcome back to the newsletter that comes at you with the big questions ????

Like, why haven’t you subscribed to my YouTube channel yet? And have you listened to the latest This Week in Digital Marketing pod?

If you did, you’d also know I had Tony Yu , Tom Wang , and Mushfiq Sarker on for a roundtable. We all went off on business plan strategies, diversification vs. specialization, and a pitch was dropped (reviews = mixed). Good times, interesting ideas, hot takes dropping like bombs ??????. If you haven’t listened… wtf are you waiting for?

PS: This episode was sponsored by Ahrefs.com, the #1 SEO tool.

Got a huge week tho, so LFG:

→ Tips on Affiliate Marketing ??

→ How to Promote a Referral Program ??

→ The State of Influencer Marketing ??

→ Google’s 7 Commandments for AI Content & More ??

→ AI Insight: Bing “Setting the Tone” ??

→ Social Media Round-up ??

→ even more, somehow ??

No time to waste. Let’s roll.

What’s New at Google ??

→ Looks like good news for Local SEOs. Google Ads just announced that as of this March, they’ll be modifying settings for location targeting. This’ll be applied across campaign types and the whole idea is make the targeting process more simple, more intuitive, and that whole deal. Another W for those of us who complain about Google being non-simple and un-intuitive. Google Ads plans to remove the "Search interest: People searching for your target locations" targeting option, but will be keeping a lot of the rest and adding some solid features. Check the SEJ article for more info.

→ Also worth checking out: Moz recently asked what can we learn from 9 years of the Google algo. Their answer includes some solid commentary on recent trends, including the facts about the algo heating up in 2022. Worth a read.

→ Google’s John Mueller has made some comments on rewriting old content w/ AI… @rustybrick summarizes Mueller’s comments this way:?

“if your content is bad, why are you writing it in the first place? If you know your content is bad, then it is not helpful, will ChatGPT make it helpful for you? How do you know if the ChatGPT version is helpful and quality if your content you originally wrote is not quality? Maybe instead of using ChatGPT to improve the quality of your content, maybe you should focus on topics that you can write quality content about?”

→? Google has also introduced AI-powered search ads and Google just dropped their 7 commandments of AI content:

AI Insight ??

What else is new? The ChatBot revolution continues, with Bing apparently “setting the tone” and raising the bar for how the AI is supposed to behave. Who knows how it will go, but at least the threats are (apparently) improving:

Speaking of setting the tone, Meta is super high on their new AI-powered language model that they think outperforms ChatGPT despite being 10 times smaller.

Bridging the gap between this section and the round-up, here’s what’s new w/ Snapchat and “My AI” which uses GPT tech and is apparently already hallucinating, but they’re just riding with it anyway. Here’s an article on the whole picture. What a time to be alive.

Social Media Round-up ??

Lots going on with TikTok, as usual. As they try to scrub their rep, they’ve announced new “brand safety” and “suitability” partners. This happens as there’s of other commotion going on re: government bans. For now, the app has just been outlawed on government devices. But the list keeps growing: Canada, the USA, and now there are calls in the UK to match what the EU has already set into law, as well. Will it cross from gov devices to personal devices? Guess we’ll wait and see. In the meantime, marketers, just try to juice TikTok while it’s here for us. Then LMK how you did it.

Speaking of, here’s a detailed breakdown of the absolute state of TikTok Analytics, featuring some useful info, like suggested KPIs, RPO metrics, and content & engagement metrics for whatever type of strategy you’re running.

What else?

→ LinkedIn: Scammers stepping up; adds interest ad targeting; introduces SEO tools for articles; insight into the top ways to advertise B2C on LinkedIn

→ Meta: Leadership summit for the Metaverse team; Insta Lead says paid verification will help small creators get a leg up;

→ a good article on Twitter, Meta, Snapchat, Tumblr, and Reddit all following Twitter and offering paid sub models

→ Twitter layoffs continue, including their extremely hardcore chief of Twitter Payments

How To Promote Your Referral Program ??

Referral programs are buzzing lately. And for good reason. Just stumbled across this pretty useful article that gives some actionable info for getting moving on this marketing strategy if you haven’t, or refining your current strategy if it’s already rolling.

The article gives 7 tips. So, as usual, here’s my top 3 list:

1) “Put it in the spotlight of your website visitors”

Whether it's via announcement bar, navigation menu, pop-up, or footer link, make sure your referral program link is visible and that there are good incentives to get the ball rolling with it.

2) “Speak to your current customers”

Obviously, getting new customers to buy in is important. But you can get current customers, too. Having a "Refer a Friend" tab near your page log-in widget, on the customer's account dashboard, on banners, in email inboxes, coming at customers via support agents, or all of the above. Lots of ways to incentivize current customers.

3) “Draw attention to the referral program using videos”

Obviously, making new video content always helps, whether it’s coming in as short-form or something longer. But you can also update existing video descriptions to include the video link.

BONUS ??

This counts as a tip for referral programs, but it’s also relevant to basically whatever else you’re up to.

MarketingDive is reporting that a whopping 81% of customers were effectively influenced by influencers last year. Food and beverage, maybe surprisingly, was #1 in terms of influencer effectiveness, followed by health & wellness, then beauty & personal care. Technology, which was previously in the top 3, was bumped out. And, of that 81%, YouTube was the leading platform for consumer buy-in re: influencer marketing, at 36%.

Tons of good data in the MarketingDive piece. Take a look.

Recruiting the Right Affiliates ??

This is a handy look into Affiliate Marketing written up by ReferralRock: How To Find Affiliate Marketers: Top 10 Ways to Recruit the Right Affiliates [+ 1 That Doesn’t Work]

Excellent article for info on reaching out to niche bloggers, partnering with similar but non-competing websites, looking out for key social media personalities, partnering with influencers and experts in the industry, searching social media groups and forums, inviting existing customers, offering an attractive commission, optimizing your landing page, paying for ads, and enhancing your visibility.

What’s the one that doesn’t work?

This article warns about affiliate networks, which can take up to 30% of the commission between you and affiliates as a "finder's fee." Best to skip the middle-man, says ReferralRock... hard to argue, tbh.