War of the Search Engines, Upcoming Twitter Features, Mitigate Busy Work, Why to Facebook in 2023, and Salary Transparency Woes from The SUM
Twitter and ChatGPT (or AI technology—in general—from wordsmithing to art) continue to absolutely dominate the headlines. Historically, those who choose to adapt and evolve with new technology tend to fair better during the storm of disruption.
Even as image licensing lawsuits attempt to slow the rate of AI-generated content—from groups of artists to Getty Images —the winds of change are a-swirling. For the writers who despise super-smart AI bots, there are no lawsuits yet, but it takes time to build a case. Still, learning how to leverage this new technology now isn't a bad idea. In some form, it's here to stay.
That's the importance of being aware and self-educated and creating a practiced habit. Reflections and insights shared among peers?generate an atmosphere and community focused on learning together—and it makes us better as creators and innovators, and it's where creativity thrives. This basic principle is the how and why of the content contained within?the SUM.
Communication is an evolutionary organism (metaphorically speaking), especially with new technology and software hitting the market every day. So, stay educated and make change happen.
*If this newsletter helps one person point their marketing, advertising, or business careers in a positive direction, this entire experiment was a success.
Leave a comment at the bottom if you learned something, hated
something, or just want to say what's up.
New Year, New Highlights ??
The War of the Search Engine: Microsoft's Bing Looks to Wage a New Battle with Google Search Using AI Chatbot Technology
Remember Microsoft’s Bing? ?? It’s that search engine you never use. Well, it’s stepping up with a major upgrade using OpenAI’s ChatGPT. To compete with its biggest search engine competitor, Google—this is not a bad move.
This upgrade will offer “more conversational and contextual replies to users’ queries” in an effort to win over search users. The intent is to supply “better-quality answers” rather than traditional links ?? according to 彭博资讯 .
The thing is Google has its LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications) system, so it’s not completely out of beat with this technology upgrade. Yet, apparently, Google issued a “code red” to respond to this upcoming feature from Bing. ??
Notably, Google Cloud ’s text-to-speech software is very good—the same with its Google Home functionality. Integrating an intelligent, AI chatbot feature would be the next level compared to a simple text response. This might help give them the upper hand over Amazon’s Alexa.
Either way, Google is certainly capable of that feat, they’re well-positioned, and a little competition in the search engine arena won’t hurt. ?? Game on.
New Updates from Your Favorite Chief Twit: Long-Form Tweets, Bookmarks, and Formatting Options on Twitter
In the first quarter of 2023, Chief Twit (Elon Musk) has announced new and updated features for the social platform to increase its engaged DAWs and market share.
Bookmarking Isn't New and Everybody's Doing It
Bookmarking is a great feature for Twitter. When you're on the go, you can't respond to every tweet you have an opinion on, so you're missing out on an opportunity to have your voice heard in your community. This functionality allows you to save a tweet and revisit it on your own time.
Elon's thought that this will increase engagement is an accurate one, and it's great to see an opportunity to give a thoughtful tweet more significance than 15-18 minutes of fame.
Long-Form Tweets and Why They Will Work
As we say goodnight to the Revue newsletter... (RIP ?? ) a long-form functionality makes a ton of sense. It will be interesting to see how Twitter developers leverage this content in Twitter search, and if you will be rewarded for lengthier word counts with more applicable keywords. No doubt, there will be a blog article to tell you once it's live.
Twitter threads parse out each tweet into its own search category. Best practices from Twitter's blog suggest each addition to a thread should hit every 15 minutes to maximize your reach , thereby continually bringing your thread to the top of the newsfeed. You can automate that process, but if you do not have access to social scheduling tools, it's unlikely you'll adopt that habit.
Goodbye Unicode, Hello Native Formatting
Formatting options for tweets is a very Tumblr -esque feature, and it might be useful for drawing attention to a very active newsfeed. Native formatting options give you the ability to bold, italicize, and change the font of your text. Sure, you can go the Unicode route on a sketchy website with a thousand ads, but who has time for that?
It'll be interesting to see if this feature is a total flop, like Instagram Notes, or a huge success.
Remember Facebook Still Exists in 2023: You Can't Fake the Stats, so Face the Facts
Plain and simple, you still need to leverage?Facebook ?in your social strategy in 2023—but why? Didn't they destroy an election with fake news....... ??
The Why of Facebook
Despite Facebook's woes over the last 5 years or so, they have a gigantic user base of 2.91 billion monthly active users—that is people who access the platform every month. Hard to ignore that traffic. That translates to roughly 2 billion per day (DAUs).
If you study Facebook's Feed or do your research to gain an understanding of how to optimize your messaging within the Feed, you'll find harnessing the power of?Meta 's algorithm means going back to the basics:
The How of the Facebook Feed
Content is amplified by where the post comes from, the time when it was posted, and how likely it is to drive engagement with the prospective audience, given their Likes, Interests, and typical behavior (i.e. content consumption).
Video is prioritized. ??
Some best practices are:
Last Tip: Despite everyone being exhausted from content creators and companies' continued asks for comments, shares, and likes—the truth is... interaction is still a key driver of virality and engagement.
Happy Facebooking! ??
领英推荐
Limit the Impact of Busy Work: Tips on Replacing Repetitive Marketing Tasks with Priorities
The average marketer spends a third of their 40-hour workweek completing repetitive, monotonous tasks. ?
When you’re lorded over by redundancy, you have less time for self-education, less time to strategize (rather than flying by the seat of your pants), and less time to enjoy your work.
Here are some tips from?HubSpot ?to reduce the burden of busy work from a very high level.
1. Determine how you'll prioritize your workload. ??
2. Create a routine with daily to-do lists. ??
People rely on?Asana,?monday.com, Basecamp,?and other project
management software to track and prioritize.
3. Add “focus time” to reach goals on your calendar. ??
Office 365 gives you this exact feature if you’re not building it in
on your own.
4. Automate manual processes. ??
5. Learn when to ask your team for help. ??
Prioritizing what’s most important can be difficult to discern when requests for content, email, print materials, etc. are coming down the pipeline. The reality is every request is important and completing those requests builds a good repertoire with your coworkers and peers.
Please, Someone, Commit to a Decision (and Own It)
However, depending on your available resources, hard decisions have to be made, and honing in on what marketing tasks “move the needle” more than others has an importance that cannot be overstated. Decisive actions are a vital component of your marketing and leadership strategy you cannot overlook.
As my former coworker,?Nic Postema, created the motto, “Get $h!t done,” by necessity, a positive mentality to conquer your to-do list will eventually become stretched and unrealistic on a small team. It just happens. When you find yourself up until midnight and back on the grind at 5:30 A.M. ?? you set yourself up for unhealthy habits. At some point, you have to limit those 60-hour workweeks before you burn out, quiet quit, or put in your two weeks.
Take a good look at what’s important to your team, review your KPIs, ask your leadership what their goal is, and assemble your goal-oriented to-do list like a pro.
Salary Transparency Reaches Ridiculousness: Netflix and Tesla Job Listings
If you're a software engineer with the ambition to work for?Netflix, you're in luck. The listed salaries range from $90,000 to $900,000 per year —which can vary depending on experience and/or specific job requirements. ??
According to?Bloomberg , similar listings were floating around in the job-hunting universe from?Tesla. They stated that the estimate included the salary, bonus, and other compensation, and that salary ranges vary by location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.
Job seekers want to see a salary range, but they also don't want to feel bamboozled by ridiculous pay variances. *If you do apply for the job... state your salary requirement at $900,000 per year and negotiate down from there.
Be the Subject Matter Expert You Were Meant To Be: 3 Tips on Better Marketing Communication and Advocacy
Learning and education make you, your peers, and your superiors better. ??
When you’re the subject matter expert in your role, the knowledge you possess has value. This can be especially true in social media management, content marketing, and digital advertising where trends shift on a dime.
Over-communication is better than no communication. ??
Be louder and be visible. If you’re in the field of communication, use the tools at your disposal to be transparent. A quick video of yourself expressing your ideas, challenges, and goals can be just as impactful internally as it can be on Instagram Reels or TikTok.
Put your money where your mouth is. ??
Loop other leaders into the conversation (i.e. senior managers, directors, and vice presidents). Give examples, show statistics, graphs, charts, brainstorm sessions, and concepts, and explain how this initiative will add value. Money talks, so don’t shy away from revenue projections (make them realistic and achievable) to hammer home your point. Ask for the responsibility to own the initiative, whether you succeed or fail.
Channel your inner salesperson. ??
Put together a pitch deck. It’s easy to forget you’re selling ideas, even when you’re not at an agency. Internal pitches are much harder because there’s a perception that if you’re paying for a service, it’s better.
Sure, paying for expertise offers high value and an expected ROI, but paying for a service or agency isn’t always the best route.
The unwillingness to invest in marketing, advertising, and/or web development resources internally is one of the most costly errors I’ve seen over 10 years in B2C and B2B roles. Oftentimes, lackluster results and huge expenditures could have translated into a new hire who learns and invests in your company better than any third-party account manager will.
If you’re a marketing or advertising professional who is getting started and wants to make an impact, or if you’re someone who needs to brainstorm an ongoing situation you’re feeling trapped in, shoot me a message or contact me here.
Food for Thought
Are you keeping up with those 2023 Resolutions or have you lost your way? ??
There's no better time than now to start making a list for your next review. ??
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.