Mediastreet
Author

editor

Browsing
In News

What is AI Marketing? A Basic Guide to Explosive Growth in 2023

No Comments

By Sarah Cha

Does the thought of AI Marketing seem intimidating?

Do you ever feel just a tad overwhelmed when you think about how fast AI seems to be changing the digital landscape?

You’ve heard that AI is the golden ticket, the game-changer, the ‘Next Big Thing.’ With its ability to turbo-charge growth and streamline customer interactions, it’s no wonder businesses big and small are taking notice.

So if you want to stay on top of this new wave of marketing, it’s time to reassess your marketing strategies and tap into the explosive growth potential of AI.

Let’s dive right in!

AI Marketing: More Than Meets the Eye

AI marketing, in simple terms, is about employing artificial intelligence to streamline and optimize marketing strategies. But here’s the kicker: it’s not just some cold, robotic process.

On the contrary, AI gives you the power to understand and interact with your audience in ways never before possible.

Do you think AI is about replacing humans with machines?

Wrong!

The real deal with AI marketing is about augmenting human capabilities, not eliminating them. Think of it like your very own marketing superpower, helping you reach the right people, at the right time, with the right message.

Or are you worried AI might make marketing impersonal and robotic?

Well, the surprising truth is that AI can actually make your marketing more human. It can save you oodles of time and energy so that you can focus on the tasks that truly matter. But how?

5 Key Components of AI Marketing

What are the building blocks of AI marketing? With the power of artificial intelligence supporting you, you can massively upgrade five critical areas of your marketing strategy:

1. Reach Your Best Customers With Hyper-Targeted Ads

Let’s face it; nobody likes irrelevant ads. It’s like being at a party and getting stuck in a conversation about a topic you have no interest in — not fun.

But with AI, you can use hyper-targeting to ensure your ads reach the right people at the right time.

Say goodbye to wasted ad spend and hello to a flock of engaged customers!

2. Engage Customers with AI Chatbots

You know that friendly little pop-up on websites that’s always ready to help? That’s a chatbot. They’re like your personal digital concierges, ready to assist 24/7.

Chatbots aren’t just fancy digital assistants; they can be your frontline salespeople.

Picture this: it’s the middle of the night, and a potential client stumbles onto your website. Who’s there to answer their burning questions?

Your trusty chatbot, that’s who!

Chatbots don’t sleep, don’t need coffee breaks, and they’re ready to interact with visitors 24/7. This instant engagement can translate into quicker conversions. Now that’s working smart!

3. Harness The Power of Predictive Analysis

Ever wish you could read your customers’ minds?

Predictive analytics is the closest thing.

By analysing past behaviour, it helps predict future actions. With AI’s predictive analysis, you can forecast future trends and tweak your marketing strategies accordingly.

No more guesswork or gut feelings – you’ve got data-driven predictions on your side. It’s like having a roadmap to success.

4. Perfect Content Personalization

It’s no secret that customers love a personalized experience. But how about personalizing your interactions with every single individual client on your list?

Sounds like a colossal task, right? Not with AI.

Artificial Intelligence can help tailor content to individual customers’ needs based on their preferences and behaviour.

Imagine if every customer felt like your website was designed just for them. Content personalization does exactly that, providing tailored experiences for each visitor.

A personalized email in their inbox can make your customers feel seen and valued. It’s like sending a hand-written note in the digital world. Isn’t it time you made your customers feel like VIPs?

5. Demystify SEO

SEO can feel like a maze, but AI makes it a walk in the park. It can analyse algorithms, understand trends, and optimize your content to rank higher.

If SEO has been making your head spin, you can now use AI-powered SEO tools to optimize your content, suggest relevant keywords, and even improve your website’s user experience.

It’s like having a marketing pro in your pocket, helping your site rank higher and attract more traffic. Ready to give Google a run for its money?

The Role of AI in Different Marketing Channels

AI isn’t just a stand-alone solution; it’s the secret sauce that spices up all your marketing channels. Here are some ways AI can revolutionize your marketing strategy in different channels:

Email Marketing

Consider email marketing, an oldie but goodie.

You might think, “What’s new about sending emails?” Well, with AI, a lot!

It’s not just about automating campaigns anymore. AI is capable of segmenting your audience based on their behaviour, interests, and other key parameters.

This means you can send hyper-personalized messages that resonate with each recipient, increasing engagement.

For instance, imagine a customer browsed through winter jackets on your online store but didn’t make a purchase. AI can trigger an automated email offering a special discount on jackets, nudging the customer to complete the purchase.

Plus, it can even identify the most opportune time to hit ‘send’ for each recipient. It’s like having your own crystal ball!

Social Media

Then we have social media, the digital hangout spot. But how do you cut through the clutter?

AI can analyse user sentiment, helping you understand how people feel about your brand in real-time. This way, you can tailor your responses and engage in more meaningful conversations.

AI can also schedule posts at the most effective times to increase visibility and engagement. And it doesn’t stop there. AI tools like ChatGPT-4 can even generate compelling content that resonates with your audience.

And that, after all, is the heart of any successful social media marketing strategy.

Content Marketing

In content marketing, AI can be your personal assistant, identifying trending topics for you to cover. It’s like having your ear to the ground 24/7.

But it gets even better. AI can optimize your content with the most effective keywords, helping you rank higher on search engines and draw more traffic to your site.

Plus, AI can tailor your content to individual user preferences.

For instance, if a visitor frequently reads blog posts about vegan recipes on your food blog, AI can highlight similar content when they visit your site. Imagine what that can do for your content marketing strategy!

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

When it comes to CRM, AI can segment customers into different groups based on their behaviour, purchase history, and preferences.

This allows you to provide more personalized service and build stronger relationships.

AI can also predict customer churn, giving you a heads-up before a customer jumps ship. This way, you can proactively address issues and improve customer retention.

Streamline and upgrade your customer management with AI, you won’t regret it!

The Practical Applications of AI Marketing

So how do you take this high-tech jargon and translate it into real-world applications? Let’s take a look at AI assistance in a couple hypothetical scenarios.

For example, let’s say you run an e-commerce store:

  • Hyper-Targeted Ads: First things first, you’d want your products to reach the right shoppers. No sense trying to sell vegan leather shoes to hardcore carnivores, right? Hyper-targeted ads, courtesy of AI, ensure that your marketing budget is spent on folks who are genuinely interested in what you’re offering.
  • Engage Customers with Chatbots: As your online store starts to buzz with customers, their queries will pile up. Instead of getting swamped with the surge, why not delegate to a chatbot? It’s like having an all-weather digital assistant that caters to customer questions, guiding them through their purchase journey.
  • Use Predictive Analysis: You’ve got the goods, but which ones will fly off the shelves next season? Predictive analytics can offer some clues. By crunching customer behaviour and purchase patterns, you can smartly forecast what products to stock up on.
  • Content Personalization: Online shopping isn’t just transactional — it’s experiential. You’d want your customers to feel that your store understands their needs. With AI, you can customize user interfaces, showing products and deals that align with individual customer preferences. It’s like each customer has their private aisle in your online store.
  • SEO Optimization: Of course, for all this magic to happen, customers need to find you first. With SEO optimization underpinned by AI, your store can rank higher in search results, attracting more traffic and potential sales.

Or let’s say you’re a lifestyle blogger, keen to expand your digital footprint:

  • Hyper-Targeted Ads: First off, you’d want to make sure your blog is getting in front of the right eyeballs. You don’t want to waste time attracting DIY enthusiasts when you’re doling out advice on mindfulness and yoga. That’s where AI comes in handy. Hyper-targeted ads can ensure that you’re attracting the readers who will truly connect with your content.
  • Engage Readers with Chatbots: As your blog grows, you’re bound to have visitors with questions or comments. Rather than spending hours responding, you could use a chatbot. It’s like a friendly digital receptionist, fielding common queries or directing readers to relevant articles round the clock.
  • Use Predictive Analysis: You’re creating excellent content, but what do your readers want next? Predictive analytics can help. By analyzing reader behavior and interests, you could identify what topics they’re likely to engage with in the future, ensuring you stay one step ahead.
  • Content Personalization: Personalization isn’t just for e-commerce. You want your readers to feel that your blog is tailor-made for them. AI can help here by tracking reader interests and suggesting content that aligns with their preferences. It’s like each reader has their personalized blog feed.
  • SEO Optimization: Lastly, you want to get found, right? With SEO optimization powered by AI, your blog will not only appeal to readers but also to search engine algorithms, drawing more traffic to your site.

But remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Implementing these strategies might take some trial and error, but the rewards are well worth the effort.

AI Marketing: The Future is Now

Embracing AI in marketing isn’t just about keeping up with the Joneses, it’s about staying ahead. It’s about enhancing efficiency, driving growth, and carving out a competitive edge.

The landscape of marketing is changing, and AI is the compass guiding the way. It’s not some distant future scenario, but a present reality. So don’t get left behind.

In this digital age, AI marketing is no longer a luxury, but a necessity. It’s not just about doing things differently, but doing different things. It’s not about working harder, but working smarter.

This is just the tip of the AI Marketing iceberg. Each technique could be your secret ingredient for explosive growth. So, are you ready to give AI Marketing a whirl and leave your competitors in the dust?

Go out there and shake things up!

By Sarah Cha

Sarah Cha is an avid writer, reader, and lifelong learner who loves making magic behind-the-scenes at Smart Blogger. When she’s not wrangling words onto a screen or page, you can find her strumming a guitar, tickling a canvas, or playing fetch with her favourite four-footed friend!

Sourced from SmartBlogger

Read More
By
In News

Twitter’s New CEO Sent a Curious Email About How She Plans to Change the Company. It All Comes Down to 2 Words

No Comments

By Justin Bariso

New Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino cited a philosophy adored by Elon Musk. How can it help you and your business?

New Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino sent her first memo to employees. Entitled “Building Twitter 2.0 Together,” it’s filled with boilerplate corporate-speak like:

  • “We need to think big”
  • “We need to transform”
  • “Literally everything is possible”
  • “You have to genuinely believe”

After these platitudes, though, we find an interesting sentence that indicates how Yaccarino is planning to make changes at Twitter:

“And we can do it all by starting from first principles–questioning our assumptions and building something new from the ground up.”

Let’s focus on two words:

First principles.

The concept of first-principles thinking is well-known in the world of physics, but it’s also related to emotional intelligence, the ability to understand and manage emotions.

What is first-principles thinking? What does it have to do with emotional intelligence? And how can first principles help you and your business? Let’s discuss. (If you like this article, make sure to sign up for my free course, which teaches simple frameworks that help you and your team build emotional intelligence.)

What is a “first principle”?

A first principle is a basic truth. It’s not an assumption that something is true based on popularity or analogy; rather, it is fundamentally sound and can be proved.

Thinking in terms of first principles is a great way to solve problems using emotional intelligence, because it helps you think rationally and keep emotions from clouding your judgment. It also keeps you from falling victim to social pressure, doing things because that’s what everyone else does, or because that’s the way it’s always been done.

To illustrate, consider the following:

First principle: Biology teaches us that a person needs oxygen, water, and food (in that order), or they will die.

Man has been able to send people deep underwater or into outer space for long periods of time, as long as their basic needs are provided for.

First principle: If a company hires an employee, it has significant costs and legal responsibilities to fulfil.

Early-stage and small companies can increase working capital and decrease legal risk by working with freelancers instead of hiring employees.

First principle: In basketball, the team with the most points when time runs out wins the game.

The Golden State Warriors focused on playing with a smaller, faster line up and shooting more three-pointers; doing so helped them win multiple championships and changed the way many teams approach the game.

It’s no surprise to hear Yaccarino speak of applying first-principles thinking at Twitter.

Her boss, Twitter owner Elon Musk, has credited first-principles thinking for the success of his companies. For example, Tesla gained a huge competitive advantage by focusing on producing large car batteries for less money. And SpaceX has succeeded because engineers found a way to efficiently reuse rockets, an idea scoffed at by experts years ago.

So, how can first-principles thinking help you and your business?

How can first principles help you?

The key to using first-principles thinking is to break a thing down to its most simple parts, and then work from there.

For example, your business may be struggling to get new customers. You don’t want to pay for ads, and you’ve tried to imitate competitors’ social media strategies but it hasn’t gotten you anywhere.

A first principle that can help: People like to do business with people they know, like, and trust.

Can you show a bit more of your personality in your advertising or social media? In doing so, your message, product, or service will likely resonate with more people.

Another example: You may struggle with the feeling that you never have enough time, and that you’re always behind.

In this case, remind yourself of the first principle that everyone has 24 hours a day, seven days a week–but some are much more productive than others.

So, ask yourself: How can I better structure my day and week to get more done?

These are simple examples, but the truth is first-principles thinking can help you tackle any problem you’re working on.

So, whether you’re struggling with the need to reinvent or simply recalibrate, try using first principles to take you back to basics, manage your emotions, and solve a problem from a brand-new perspective.

Feature Image Credit: Linda Yaccarino. Getty Images

By Justin Bariso

Sourced from Inc.

Read More
By
In News

Branding: The layer-1 of a successful Web3 marketing strategy

No Comments

By German Ramirez

Building on a blockchain follows similar fundamental principles to building in real life.

Building on a blockchain follows similar fundamental principles to building in real life. First, you establish the foundations, then you can start laying the bricks, and only once it’s built can someone begin experiencing the building’s purpose. With blockchain, establishing a foundation involves selecting (or even designing) a first layer. Laying the bricks is akin to writing the platform code, and only then the user experience can begin.

So why, if we know the process involved in building a successful, sustainable structure from scratch, do we ignore it when it comes to our crypto marketing efforts?

The naïve crypto founder’s marketing checklist

Building a Web3 project from scratch? Here’s a typical marketing checklist for starry-eyed founders:

  • Have a logo: something from a freelancer will do to start
  • Create a whitepaper: this is a must-have for VCs
  • Have a website and social media accounts
  • Create a blog (remember: SEO matters)
  • Engage a PR agency and issue lots of press releases ahead of launch
  • Use influencers (more followers = more reach)
  • Use paid placements to establish authority
  • Participate in sponsorships and time on stage at big events

Even if a project manages to survive the next crash, it’ll invariably end up rinsing and repeating this list with endless newer and more exciting features, products and services, with little return on its marketing spend.

The problem is, when everyone is doing the same thing, nobody stands out. And during the bear markets, what’s left? All of the above costs time and money, but none of it buys loyalty.

All entrepreneurs building on blockchain understand the importance of building from the foundations up — starting with layer-1. Layer-1 underpins everything.

What are the characteristics you seek from layer-1?

  • Decentralization with distributed shared ownership
  • Immutability
  • Transparency
  • Longevity

Nothing in the extensive founder’s marketing checklist shares these non-negotiable properties.

Your brand is your layer-1 of your marketing  

Successful marketing starts with its own layer-1 — building the brand. Your layer-1 is the keystone on which your entire platform is built, and your brand is the keystone on which your entire marketing strategy should be constructed.

Your brand isn’t a logo or a catchy slogan. It’s first and foremost a memorable, relevant, credible, unique, concise and consistent brand positioning and promise. Ideally, it’s supported by a clear set of values, ideas, narratives and visuals that pull everything else together.

Your brand is what makes people recognize you. It’s what invokes what your business is known for. And it’s the only part of your marketing toolkit that creates a truly emotional tie between you and your target audience.

Remember, your brand is the only asset that you can derive from your marketing spend. However much you pay a PR or marketing agency, no matter how much they talk about ROI — without a brand, it’s all just talk. Your brand is your layer-1.

That’s not to say that all the other stuff isn’t important. Your socials, blog and PR campaigns all matter. But they are your layer-2 — your touchpoints. If we take the blockchain analogy, your layer-2 marketing activities and touchpoints are like your dApps. They’re your presence — your voice to the world.

Layer-3 is where the magic happens. Layer-3 is the experience, where your brand, product and story come together to create traction, impact and enduring value. This is why people will come back and what will propel you through the toughest of bear markets and financial hardships.

But without layer-1 — your brand — you’ll never reach layer-3 based on a foundation of layer-2 alone. It would be like trying to launch a dApp without a blockchain.

Retrofitting works

Hang on, you may be thinking. I’ve already started my business, and I didn’t build a brand before I started. I already have my website, socials, blog and campaigns set up, but without a brand. Is it all now doomed to fail?

It’s not a problem.

Unlike dApps, which can’t run without blockchains, it is possible to retroactively build your brand. In fact, the chances are that in the process of building your layer-2, you’ve already started creating an impression that can help to form the basis of your brand.

What are you good at? Why does your community come to you above the competition? Why is your offering relevant?

Arguably, if you have already started, you’re in an even stronger position to build a brand retroactively because you already have enough data and input to be able to answer these questions. Those touchpoints you set up are a valuable trove of feedback from people who have engaged with your product and formed an impression. Listen to what they have to say.

Once you know what you’re good at, and how you’re being perceived, you have the ingredients to create your brand. The rest is pure science.

By German Ramirez

German is co-founder and chief relevance officer of THE RELEVANCE HOUSE, a branding, marketing and growth agency focused on blockchain and Web3.

Sourced from COINTELEGRAPH

Read More
By
In News

How AI Will Get You Fired—If You Don’t Use It

No Comments

By William Arruda

Despite the prevailing concerns about the potential for artificial intelligence to eliminate jobs and harm (or even destroy) the planet, the reality is quite different. AI is not necessarily the harbinger of doom; rather, it has immense potential to enhance human capabilities and drive positive outcomes. The challenge is in understanding and applying AI without being overwhelmed by it.

To learn how leaders and career-minded professionals can embrace AI as a tool for accelerating career advancement and increasing professional happiness, I reached out to Matt Strain, the AI Whisperer, who was featured in the NY Times for using “ChatGPT to create an entire book of cocktails based on the tenets of traditional Chinese medicine written in the style of the J. Peterman catalog.” After a long career at big tech companies (Apple, Adobe …), Matt’s started his own company, The-Prompt.AI, to focus on what he calls “AI for Real People.”

William Arruda: Matt, you shared a quip that’s making the rounds online: “AI won’t replace your job, but someone using AI might.” It’s how I came up with the title of this article, and it’s a sentiment echoing across organizations, from individuals to agencies and companies alike. Interestingly, the Pew Research Center’s report A Majority of Americans Have Heard of ChatGPT, But Few Have Tried It Themselves highlights the public’s simultaneous fascination and fright with the increased use of AI. With the incredible potential that AI promises, why have so few people incorporated it into their work?

Matt Strain: You’re absolutely right. The vast potential of AI invokes fascination and fear. Many people simply don’t know where to start. We’ve seen companies condone the use of AI tools like ChatGPT and DALL-E. Others are requiring usage in the hopes of increased productivity. In addition to the natural fear of change, two main things come into play. First, the fear parlays into scepticism. Many look to find the flaws to confirm their fears. Second, most people simply don’t understand how to get the most out of the tools. Their prompts are ineffective and they have a poor experience.

Arruda: You say that rather than fearing AI, we should embrace it as a catalyst for progress. You suggest that by integrating AI into our work and leveraging its capabilities, we can unlock new opportunities, streamline processes, boost productivity and propel our careers to new heights. You make it sound like the magic bullet for career success.

Strain: There’s an opportunity to reframe this and think of AI as a creative muse that will push us to think more broadly. I believe it will become a non-judgmental co-pilot that is always eager to engage in exploratory discussions. In a nutshell, when you embrace AI right now, you will stand out from your peers and enhance the value of your personal brand.

Having said that, AI is not a magic bullet. We humans still need to invest the energy in forming the right questions and exploring the most important problems. These tools will augment—not replace—our skills.

Arruda: How else do you see AI being used by “real people?”

Strain: Everything everywhere all at once. Well, almost. For career advancement, continuous learning and adaptation are key. Generative AI systems can provide personalized learning resources. For instance, an entrepreneur venturing into the AI tech industry can employ AI for guidance on trends, opportunities, and goal-oriented recommendations. AI can aid in everything from designing research surveys to evaluating corporate strategy. AI is not some future concept. It’s a present-day tool being used by many.

Arruda: Are there any specific AI-powered platforms or applications that you believe can significantly improve networking and professional relationship-building?

Strain: There are many. AI will intelligently recommend contacts, personalize communications, and optimize engagement timings. It will nurture professional relationships through automated scheduling, social monitoring, real-time translation, and insights from data analytics.

These tools are being integrated into major networking platforms like LinkedIn and CRM tools. Microsoft’s relationship with OpenAI ensures that AI will be baked into their office suite. Google is already working on many of these tools. There’s also a new wave of AI start-ups rushing in on a daily basis.

Arruda: What are some real-world work applications that maybe we haven’t even thought about but would help us save time or take the drudgery out of monotonous work activities?

Strain: Meetings and email. In my seventeen years at Adobe, I calculated that I attended more than 40,000 meetings! Imagine a world where meetings are a breeze, and everyone actually looks forward to them. Imagine AI effortlessly aligning schedules, crafting tailor-made agendas, and making sure every voice is heard with real-time transcriptions and translations. With the mundane handled, your post-meeting world is infused with crisp summaries, clear action items, and insightful analytics, turning endless meetings into bursts of creativity and productivity. Might you actually look forward to meetings in the future?

Don’t even get me started about email. AI is coming to optimize that, but I’ll save those thoughts for the next interview.

Arruda: I have heard the emergence of generative AI compared to Oppenheimer’s nuclear bomb. What ethical considerations should career-minded professionals keep in mind when using AI in their work? What are the potential risks or pitfalls?

Strain: Yes, the comparison to Oppenheimer is in terms of AI having the capacity for both good and evil. The main ethical considerations in the short term revolve around ensuring fairness by mitigating biases, safeguarding data privacy and maintaining human accountability for AI-driven decisions. Successful companies will hold on to the human touch and be mindful of deploying AI as an augmentation, not a replacement.

We’re going to see a wave of anxiety in which employees and leaders have to manage short-term fear of change and concerns about jobs, mid-term fear of misinformation and economic disruption, and long-term fears of what it means to be human and the potential for bad actors. These are real and compounding fears. Leaders will have to draw on change management skills to proactively present a vision that demonstrates the ability to direct AI as a productive, creative force. Employees, shareholders and customers will depend on this.

On the positive side, AI can be directed to assist with all these concerns.

Arruda: How can AI assist professionals in enhancing their personal branding and online presence? Are there any specific strategies or tools you recommend? Any examples of people who are doing it right?

Strain: Absolutely. AI has the remarkable ability to study an individual, identifying their strengths and weaknesses, and distilling their authentic values and unique qualities. By observing professionals, AI can offer proactive guidance, aiding in their development and helping them create a genuine and compelling story that sets them apart. Once this story is formed, AI can further assist in creating a strategic plan to effectively communicate this narrative to the right audience. AI-infused tools will help with designing imagery, creating content and monitoring your brand mentions.

Arruda: I know you have been traveling the globe lately as a consultant to corporate leaders at companies in a variety of industries. You’re helping them establish their AI strategies. Without divulging any corporate secrets, what are these leaders’ biggest concerns and hopes for AI?

Strain: It’s a challenging time for leaders. They need to keep a positive attitude and be actively engaged, even as they tackle a long list of concerns such as where to begin, not wanting to disrupt what’s working, how to manage data, ethical issues, and the costs of bringing AI into the fold. There’s also the human element; they’re worried about how this affects their employees in terms of morale, the need for additional training, and the possibility of job losses. These are very real concerns, but they’re also manageable issues that can be addressed with a level-headed plan.

I foresee that the benefits are going to be greater than the worries. Right off the bat, AI can take over mundane work, which means people can focus on more strategic, higher-value tasks. For example, being able to use data effectively will spur innovation and enhance the experience for customers and employees alike. Once we get past this early transitionary stage, I see a future where our teams benefit from working side-by-side with AI-driven tools that can learn and augment their human counterparts.

Arruda: Thanks, Matt. It sounds like the power of AI as a tool for expanding your career success is bound only by the imagination. Readers, to see how you can push past the fear and leverage AI, check out this podcast where Matt dispels myths and reduces the stress that surrounds artificial intelligence.

Feature Image Credit: getty

By William Arruda

William Arruda is a keynote speaker, co-founder of CareerBlast.TV and creator of the 360Reach Personal Brand Survey that helps you get candid, meaningful feedback from people who know you.

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website.

Sourced from Forbes

Read More
By
In News

8 ChatGPT Prompts To Finish Hours Of Work In Seconds

No Comments

By Jodie Cook

Co-creating with artificial intelligence can make your work better. What used to take days can now take hours, what used to require trawling through freelancers can be created in a few clicks. For individual creators, an AI co-pilot makes a lot of sense. But rather than outsourcing every part of your work to ChatGPT, use it for the preparation and the ideation. Use it for those grunt work tasks that you don’t really enjoy.

Rowan Cheung is founder of The Rundown, a fast-growing AI newsletter providing an in-depth look at the latest developments in AI. In less than 4 months, The Rundown has gained a following of over 170,000 subscribers who rely on its content to stay informed about the latest advancements in artificial intelligence. Cheung is on a mission to inform millions of people about the latest advancements in AI and highlight how technology is transforming the world. His AI database, Supertools, records the best tools mentioned in the newsletter.

Cheung shares eight ChatGPT prompts to finish hours of work in seconds, to supercharge your output without breaking a sweat.

1. Explain like I’m a beginner

Perhaps there’s a concept you haven’t fully grasped, but it’s fundamental to whatever you’re writing or working on. Rather than struggle away trying to wrap your head around what it means, ask ChatGPT to find an explanation that resonates. After using this prompt, your entire project might make more sense, opening a clear picture of the way forward.

Here’s the prompt: “Explain [topic] in simple terms. Explain to me as if I’m a beginner.” What follows should be basic concepts, simple analogies and memorable ways of demystifying the field.

2. Create unique content ideas

Perhaps you’re right at the beginning of your content creation journey and you need the ideas to get you started, optimized for a certain platform. If you have your topic and you know your audience, ask ChatGPT to come up with ideas of how you can most effectively share, in such a way that the content could go viral. Discard the bad ideas and move forward with the best.

Here’s the prompt, according to Cheung: “Topic: How to [go viral on Twitter, write a viral blog post] talking about [your topic]. Come up with unique and innovative content ideas that are unconventional for this topic for the medium of [Twitter, article, LinkedIn, etc].”

3. Quiz yourself

So you’ve been learning a new subject but you’re not sure it’s sticking. In school, you’d learn and revise to pass a test. Now, you can use ChatGPT to create that test. Ask for a quiz to test your existing knowledge on a topic, to figure out your gaps and how much is left to learn. Or, ask for a quiz about a topic you know nothing about, perhaps before you begin a project on that topic, to set the scene and motivate you to conquer it.

Cheung recommends using this very simple prompt: “Give me a short quiz that tests me on [what you want to learn]” and be sure to fact-check, because the program has been known to deviate from the facts.

4. Change the writing style or tone

Imagine you wrote something in a bad mood and now it shows in the tone. Or you sent a bio in first person and someone wants it in third. Whatever you have made can be transformed with this prompt, saving you the time of doing it manually.

The prompt: “Change the writing style of the text below to [style or tone]” then paste the text, hit return and see the new version. If you need further edits, ask for them too.

5. Consult an expert

When you know there’s room for improvement in what you have written, get ChatGPT to be your trusted editor. Whether you want it to play the part of a lawyer, subject matter expert or simply a proof-reader, ask for commentary from that point of view.

Cheung prompts ChatGPT in the following way: “I will give you a sample of my writing. I want you to criticize it as if you were [role]” Then add your writing, submit to ChatGPT and brace for its critique. Take the parts you agree with and ask it to rewrite the text with them in mind.

6. Train it to learn your writing

Not only can you train ChatGPT to learn your writing style, you can train it to create its own prompt to write in your style. And who better to create prompts for ChatGPT than the program itself? It will be instructing itself in its own preferred way of learning, a self-guiding method that brings you the best results.

The prompt is simple: “Analyse the text below for style, voice, and tone. Create a prompt to write a new paragraph in the same style, voice, and tone.” After adding your text, what follows will be the prompt that you can paste into future instructions to write in your style.

7. Specify the audience and purpose

Let’s imagine you’ve asked ChatGPT to write some articles on a certain topic, but it’s missing the mark. Or imagine you’ve written the content yourself but you know it could be better. Here’s where more specific prompting can bring forth more detailed work, that resonates far better with your audience

Within this prompt, specify the audience, tone and goal. Cheung’s example on an article with, “Topic: How to grow your Twitter following,” was to add, “Audience: Twitter users trying to grow their account. Tone: Inspiring Goal: Inspire audience to feel excited about growing their Twitter following and teach them how to do it in simple terms.” Now, the text will be reworked to fulfil that goal, without any further input from you.

8. List long articles in bullet points

Much of the content on the internet is simply curation. Academics and philosophers did the research and the thinking, and the rest of us are turning those vast studies into bite-sized nuggets that our audiences can consume. As with most tasks of this nature, there’s a prompt for that.

This prompt for ChatGPT, according to Cheung, is to: “Summarize this paragraph into bullet points that a beginner would understand.” You then copy a paragraph or more from any given text and see a summary. This summary might be used as a social media post, a LinkedIn carousel, or simply used to help you paraphrase in a way that suits your style and medium.

Don’t get stuck with writer’s block, chained to your desk struggling for inspiration to start, keep going or finish. Use these simple prompts to expand your reach, unlock new ideas and create more consistently. Build a habit of co-creating with AI and take steps in the right direction of prolific production.

Feature Image Credit: getty

By Jodie Cook

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website or some of my other work here.

Founder of Coachvox.ai – we make AI coaches. Forbes 30 under 30 class of 2017. Post-exit entrepreneur and author of Ten Year Career. Competitive powerlifter and digital nomad.

Sourced from Forbes

Read More
By
In News

Elon Musk’s Twitter promised employees at least half their bonuses last year and then didn’t pay up, lawsuit says

No Comments

By Joel Rosenblatt and Bloomberg

Twitter employees sued the social media company claiming it refuses to pay 2022 bonuses, despite promises that they would be paid out at 50% of their target amounts.

Twitter has a cash performance bonus plan that is paid out annually and in the months leading up to Elon Musk’s acquisition of the company in October, executives, including former Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, said the bonuses would be paid, according to the lawsuit filed Tuesday in San Francisco federal court.

“Twitter refused to pay employees who remained employed by the company in the first quarter of 2023 any bonus,” the employees said.

Since Musk took over, Twitter has lost more than half its advertising revenue as brands stopped trusting the site to remove violent, pornographic and hateful content. Twitter also shed more than 75% of its employees, through layoffs and resignations. The site has been roiled by technical difficulties, including during a recent launch of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ campaign for president.

The proposed class-action complaint on behalf of current and former Twitter employees employed in the first quarter of 2023 who didn’t receive their bonus was filed by Mark Shobinger, who was Twitter’s senior director of compensation until late last month. The job entailed overseeing executive and incentive pay and in November expanded his responsibilities to include employee compensation globally, according to the suit.

Twitter has disbanded its media relations department and doesn’t respond to requests for comment.

Since Musk’s acquisition, the company has been sued numerous times for allegedly failing to pay its bills, including rent, and by former employees for severance and back pay.

The social media company has traditionally set a target for its bonus plan, which is funded throughout the year and pays out at least 50% of the target annually, according to the lawsuit.

“Both before and after Musk’s acquisition was completed in October 2022, Twitter’s management continuously promised the company’s employees, including plaintiff, that their annual bonus for 2022 would be paid under the Bonus Plan,” the employees said in the lawsuit.

Because Twitter reneged on various promises to its employees, including its refusal to pay the bonuses, Shobinger said he quit. He sued for breach of contract.

Feature Image Credit: Chesnot/Getty Images

By Joel Rosenblatt and Bloomberg

Sourced from Fortune

Read More
By
In News

5 Must-Have Group of Tools for Every Business and SEO Specialist in 2023

No Comments

By Joseph Chukwube

As the digital landscape evolves, so do the tools and strategies needed to make businesses succeed online. Search Engine Optimization itself, as a business marketing strategy, has had its ‘death’ declared so many times because it felt like it was no longer relevant. Yet, it’s still here, more strongly than before.

More so, consider the AI revolution that’s currently taking place. Does that mean you should throw away all your old tools and start using AI for everything? It would have been cool if it were that easy.

However, managing a business is not. And search engine optimization is not easy either. That’s why we have reviewed five different categories of tools that your business must invest in to hit your SEO goals and enhance your presence online. Beginner or expert, these tools will make your life easier and your results better.

Keyword Research

Paying for Google Search ads is the fastest way to appear on top of the search engine’s results for relevant queries (if you have enough money). However, the most valuable way to get to the top and remain there is by organically matching the content on your website to the most common terms searched by users.

Data from keyword research tools are organized into lists of the most common keywords relevant to your website. Hence, they are great resources for finding new content ideas, connecting with your audience, and improving traffic.

When choosing a tool for keyword research, you should be okay with free tools such as Google Trends or Google Keyword Planner. However, they each have their limitations. Google Trends is geared toward general knowledge and shows you nothing besides trendiness. Google Keyword Planner, on the other hand, lies within the Google Ads system and is geared towards paid ads, rather than organic search.

As far as free tools go, you can’t do much more than data coming from Google itself. But paid tools take you steps further with improved results, clear insights, and seamless automation. Popular paid tools such as Ahrefs and Moz sit on the high end, costing upwards of $100 for subscriptions. More affordable ones include the Eye10 Keyword Planner, which starts at $39 and includes everything you should expect from a keyword tool: ideas and suggestions, monthly search volume, difficulty level, and the ability to export results.

Analytics

Search engines have an incentive to ensure that their top search results are relevant to the user. But this is not a static process and several (hundreds of) factors come into play.

When your business relies heavily on traffic coming from search engines, you can’t help the occasional jolting feeling when the search engine updates its algorithm such that your efforts seem obsolete. At other times, your efforts are indeed obsolete and you must have been doing something wrong once you notice that your ranking and traffic have taken a hit.

The point here is that, as far as SEO goes, there is always something to improve upon. Always. And how would you know that if you don’t have the right tool to analyze what’s happening? Sometimes, the website itself is the problem; at other times, user behavior may be shifting towards what your website is not yet optimized for. Still, search algorithms may just be doing their thing and it’s affecting you negatively.

Google is, by far, the most popular search engine. So, its Search Console tool is, without a doubt, the best free tool for monitoring your site’s presence in search results. It helps you troubleshoot any issues you might have and ultimately make informed decisions to enhance your website presence.

Content Creation

Everywhere you turn, there is a proliferation of blogs, podcasts, newsletters, videos, webinars, etc. Basically, it’s the content creation revolution and there is an emerging work field of ‘creators’, professionals who apply their creativity in crafting digital content that resonates with their audience.

The most popular creators are individuals, such as MrBeast and Khaby Lame but many businesses have found themselves increasingly locked into content creation because it is a great way to market their brands. Whether it’s a blog or a newsletter, ebooks, or whitepapers, creating content is the order of the day. What you should be thinking about is how to make it better. And there is a solid toolkit for that.

For creating written content, Grammarly is the defacto spelling and grammar checker although others such as the Hemingway Editor and ProWritingAid are excellent alternatives. Canva leads in the graphic design aspect as a highly user-friendly tool for creating social media posts, videos, infographics, presentations, and much more.

Capcut, Descript, Audacity, Buzzsprout, YouTube Studio, etc. are useful for editing, preparing, and distributing your video and audio content for your audience. And any collaborative task manager or workspace tool will help you easily manage your content calendar.

Link Building

Link building is a top-three tactic for getting ahead in SEO. Over the years, Google has developed an immense capacity at detecting and penalizing websites determined to manipulate its algorithm via unethical practices such as link farming and link spamming. The best way to build links today is to earn the backlinks as well as the authority that comes with them.

Ethical link-building opportunities abound but going at it manually can be daunting and frustrating, given the tough competition in the industry. Even something as ‘simple’ as requesting a guest blogging opportunity requires that several moving parts are working without friction. First, you have to publish linkable content, then conduct outreaches, optimize your links and anchors, find broken links and unlinked brand mentions, and monitor competitors. The whole time, you still have to track the effectiveness of your link-building efforts.

As far as link building is concerned, there is no all-in-one tool. It is more likely that you’d be using a combination of various tools to achieve different purposes. For finding link opportunities, SEMrush and Ahrefs offer very useful features. Pitchbox, Buzzstream, and JustReachOut help you to reach out to and collaborate with influencers. Eye10 Backlink Monitor is great for analyzing your backlinks to determine their impact and find issues.

Social Media Management

For many customers today, especially those of the younger generation, a business that lacks a social media presence is as good as not existing. Businesses have responded likewise, by not just establishing their presence on social media but assigning whole teams to control the narrative about their business online.

But social media is not just a PR or a communications tool; it boosts your SEO too when managed strategically. For instance, sharing links to your website increases brand exposure and provides extensive content distribution. Social media might not be an element of SEO ranking, but its benefit such as enhancing your brand recognition and reputation online can contribute immensely to your website traffic.

The entire cycle of creating, publishing, and monitoring content on social media requires strategic workflows, and there are tools that would help you save time and make it less overwhelming, particularly through automation. Buffer, Hootsuite, and Sprout Social help you manage several social media accounts in one platform, including scheduling your posts and accessing comprehensive analytics data. And for building simple landing pages, Linktree is hands-down the most popular tool.

Conclusion

Staying ahead of the competition in a field like SEO takes a lot of hard work. Plus, sustainability is hardly guaranteed; one wrong turn and your website and business are sinking. But these tools can help you to stay afloat when used properly. These are the aspects of SEO you should focus the most of your attention upon.

By Joseph Chukwube

Entrepreneur, Online Marketing Consultant

I’m a Professional Content Writer and Marketer, SEO and PR Expert. I’m the Founder of Digitage and Startup Growth Guide, results-driven marketing agencies. To create content and and improve your brand awareness, get in touch at [email protected]

Sourced from readwrite

Read More
By
In News

Unlock Your Earning Potential: Strategies to Scale Up Your Freelancing Income

No Comments

By Jane Du

Are you tired of your freelancing income plateauing? Do you dream of reaching new heights, unlocking your full earning potential, and making money through freelancing? Look no further! In this article, we unveil a treasure trove of strategies that will turbocharge your freelancing income and propel you toward financial success. 

From mastering the art of negotiation to expanding your client base and leveraging passive income streams, we will explore the tried-and-true techniques that top freelancers use to scale up their earnings. Get ready to embark on a journey toward greater prosperity and unlimited possibilities!

Ask Previous Clients for Feedback

Many freelancers need more time, resources, and mental energy to dedicate to their clients. This can make it challenging to grow their business without taking on more clients or outsourcing.

Asking for feedback is one of the best ways to scale your freelance business. By asking for feedback, you can identify what your clients want more of and learn how to deliver it better. This will help you increase your profits and improve your overall quality of work.

When asking for feedback, focus on specific details necessary to your clients. For example, suppose a client mentions difficulty focusing on a task or scheduling meetings. In that case, you can use this feedback to develop a strategy to help them overcome these obstacles. This will help you provide a more valuable service to your clients and build stronger relationships. The more valuable you are to your clients, the happier they will be with your services.

Increase Your Rate

Unlike a traditional salary, your freelance rate isn’t guaranteed to increase yearly to keep pace with inflation. That means it’s important to reassess and raise your rates regularly as necessary and set money.

The best way to do this is by establishing a consistent schedule, like on a quarterly or annual basis, that will let your clients know you’ll be reviewing and possibly raising your rates to ensure you continue to offer value for their business. Providing this advance notice will help your clients be more prepared and accepting of the change rather than feeling surprised or resentful.

Also, build an emergency fund to safeguard against unexpected expenses and create a financial safety net. Prioritize your financial well-being as you scale up your freelancing career.

Take on More Projects

As you grow your freelance business, taking on more clients or projects may become necessary. However, you must be careful not to over-extend and burn yourself out. Setting realistic expectations and being honest with your clients about what you can and cannot deliver is essential.

Taking on too many projects can lead to poor-quality work, missed deadlines, and overall burnout. To avoid this, you should only accept projects that fit within your skill set and can be completed in a reasonable amount of time.

It’s also a good idea to focus on working with clients who value your expertise and pay you a fair rate. This will help you maintain a positive mindset and feel more confident about your work. You should also focus on reading between the lines to understand what your clients are asking for. This will allow you to improve your services and ultimately increase your rates.

Ask for Referrals

If you have clients that you enjoy working with and whose projects you have been able to deliver on, it’s a good idea to ask for referrals. Ensure you ask when the client has been happy with your work and is receptive to a request for more business.

A great way to ask is to email the client, express your enthusiasm for the project, and ask if she knows anyone who could benefit from your services. You can also include a smartly worded link or referral request as part of your invoices, in professional emails, or on social media.

Often, it is different from what you do, but who you know will determine your success in freelancing. Make it a priority to build your network of professional relationships, and the quality of your referrals will grow, too. For more tips on how to ask for referrals, check out this article by Megan Taylor.

Delegating Work

Delegating work is one of the best ways to increase your freelance income. It’s a skill that takes time to learn, but once you’ve mastered it, you can save yourself hours of unbillable work each day and focus on the tasks that will truly grow your business.

Hire contractors or assistants to handle repetitive, recurring tasks. This frees you up to take on more high-value projects and improve your overall quality of service.  Also, this approach helps to spread the workload across different workers who can each do their own thing without the overhead of hiring someone to fill in the gaps.

You may only be an expert in some aspects of your business, so it makes sense to outsource certain tasks to people who can do them better than you can. For example, you might be a good designer, but you’re probably not a great bookkeeper.

Streamline your workflows

A streamlined process can make a massive difference to your business. A simplified process means you know what you need to do and how to do it, so no confusion or guessing games are involved.

Having a streamlined process also means you can work at your best because there are no mistakes or delays. You can spend more time focusing on your business and less time on tasks that aren’t essential to your company’s growth.

Creating an Online Presence

A solid online presence is a crucial way to boost your freelance income. This includes having a website, social media channels, business listings, niche directories, contributor platforms, forums, and Q&A resources.

This strategy can also help you land higher-profile clients. A well-rounded online presence showcases your expertise, which can lead to clients seeing you as a trustworthy choice for their project.  It can also help you build likability with potential clients so they’re more likely to hire you in the future.

You can use a website to create a professional-looking online portfolio, a great source of leads and clients. Creating a YouTube channel or blog can also help demonstrate your skills and attract potential clients.

By implementing these strategies, you’ll be well on scaling up your freelancing income and achieving your financial goals. Remember, consistency, perseverance, and a commitment to excellence are key to long-term success in the freelancing world.

By Jane Du 

Jane Du is a dynamic and passionate Outreach Manager at Joywallet.com, leading the charge in partnerships and link collaboration. With a sharp eye for identifying strategic opportunities, Jane forges impactful alliances with experts, influencers, and great companies, driving the company’s growth. Beyond her professional achievements, Jane finds solace in the beauty of nature, often exploring picturesque landscapes like Corfe Castle to Ballard Down with her loyal companion, Rio, by her side. Jane’s commitment to empowering individuals and her love for adventure make her a driving force behind Joywallet.com’s mission to revolutionize personal growth and success. Jane can be contacted at [email protected].

Read More
By
In News

7 Best Social Media Platforms for Authors to Boost Readership

No Comments

By Ashley Simpson

Authors have a unique need to connect with their audience in the places where they hang out: most notably on social media platforms. This can help grow an author’s audience and boost their engagement and book sales. There are tons of platforms out there that they can use to connect with their target audience. How do they decide which is the best social media for authors?

Instead of reinventing the wheel or trying a little bit of everything, here is what you need to know about the best social media platforms.

Let’s dive right in.

Creating the Right Facebook Page

For many authors, the first and most obvious solution is to choose the social media platform where they engage with most of their friends: Facebook. It’s a flexible platform that allows you to create social media posts that include text, images, or videos.

If your target audience is between the ages of 35 and 44, you’ll want to head straight to Facebook. According to Hootsuite, almost half of all people visit the social media giant multiple times a day.

The question is: what kind of Facebook page should you create?

Perks of Using Your Personal Facebook Page

Some authors want their audience to feel like they can personally connect with them. This is great during the early stages of your author career when you want to really make deep and lasting connections with your audience.

If you don’t mind not having a distinction between your writing business and your personal life, making them the same has benefits: for one, you don’t need to worry about keeping up with multiple pages.

Whatever you post is available not just to family and real-life friends but also to your readers.

Leveraging your personal Facebook profile for your writing career means that your audience will need to “friend” you before they can see your content. This might make things a little tricky as you’ll need to approve each new fan. This is why many people use an author page as part of their social media strategy.

Creating an Author Page

The social network also allows you to create an author page, which is very similar to a business page. Your author page caters to the business of bookselling, allowing you a platform that others can easily access to see upcoming events, details surrounding an upcoming book release, and more.

You can even use it to share book reviews that start rolling in as your audience grows.

Plus, people won’t have to friend you in order to gain access to your page. This makes it much more likely that you will be able to reach your audience without the hands-on method of accepting or denying requests from people that you don’t know in real life.

Utilizing a Facebook Group to Reach a Target Audience

A Facebook group is another way to start leveraging the best social media for authors. You can connect with readers in groups catering to your books’ topic and writing. Authors who can’t find a community or Facebook groups that cater to their niche audience can start their own.

The more engagement you get, the more likely you are to show up in the Facebook algorithm.

This means you’ll be more likely to show up in your audience’s feeds instead of forcing them to come over to your group to view new posts.

Instagram for Photos and Videos

Authors who don’t mind putting themselves in front of the camera will want to consider Meta’s other social media platform: Instagram. Designed for images and videos, you can leverage Instagram as part of a robust social media strategy.

Benefits of a More Visual Platform

This social network allows you to make a more personal connection with your target audience. Take them behind the scenes of your writing process with some of these ideas:

  • Take a photo of your workspace.
  • Publish a picture with a quote from your latest novel.
  • Take a video of your process while you work (similar to a vlog).

With more than 2 billion monthly users on Instagram, adults claim to spend at least a half hour a day on the social media platform. Plus, most users are younger, making this perfect for connecting with those ages 18 to 34.

Tapping into Bookstagram

Bookstagram is a popular offshoot of Instagram, indicating that you have an account dedicated solely to your love of books. To get started on Bookstagram, here are a few ideas that you can leverage as marketing tools:

  • Ask readers to share reviews of your writing skills and books.
  • Host giveaways for items related to your books or copies of your books.
  • Share pictures of what’s on your “to be read” pile.
  • Run a promotion specifically for users on Instagram stores.

All you have to do to tap into a very active audience on Instagram is to tag your posts with the hashtag #bookstagram.

Quickly Build a Twitter Following

With so many platforms, Twitter might not be the obvious first choice. However, it’s a great platform to connect with readers and to keep tabs on the publishing industry as a whole.

According to Pew Research, those who take to Twitter tend to be a younger audience with a higher degree of education. If this aligns with your target audience, you must get used to the fast-paced social media giant.

Perks of Keeping it Short and Sweet

Unlike social platforms like Instagram and Facebook, Twitter is designed to give bite-sized nuggets of information. You won’t need to spend hours writing paragraph after paragraph. Instead, a sentence or two is usually all you can fit into the character limit.

This means that you can post multiple times a day without having to spend hours writing fresh content.

While they have expanded their character limit, many people still prefer to keep it short and sweet, in line with the original intention behind Twitter. The writing world is varied and active on this social media platform, and writers will want to take note.

Twitter Etiquette for Building a Following

This social media for writers is a great option because it has a simple etiquette for growing your following. Namely, it would be best if you follow everyone who follows you. This may clutter up your feed, but it’s the polite thing to do to grow your audience and theirs.

You never know when you’ll find fresh content or a partnership with another author platform where you can share reviews, giveaways, and more for each other.

Booktok to Capture New Readers

Much like Instagram has Bookstagram, TikTok now has Booktok. Popular authors like Colleen Hoover leverage this social network to reach more people in younger audiences, but all authors can make good use of it.

How popular is BookTok, and how is it influencing the role of reading in the lives of adults?

Some sources say that people read up to 50 percent more due to the referrals and recommendations they find on BookTok. This social media strategy inspires your desired audience to pick up a copy of your book today.

Making Video Content for Your Work

Unlike YouTube, which generally has focused more on long-form content (we’ll look at this in a minute), TikTok is primarily short videos that are easily consumed at a glance. You can’t upload any videos that are longer than three minutes.

Many writers are hesitant to put themselves in front of the camera, preferring to hide behind their words on the computer screen. But getting more reviews of your books and putting your face out there for people to get to know you could be worth it.

Ideas for TikTok Posts

Not sure what you would talk about on camera for a BookTok post? Here are a few ideas to get you started:

  • Quick and easy writing tips
  • Background information on your writing process
  • A behind-the-scenes look at your latest novel
  • Reading reviews from other platforms and readers
  • Sharing more about your own reading habits (pass the love along to your favourite authors!)

Goodreads Author Program

Readers often want to know what others say about a book before they’re willing to fork over $10 to $20 for their own copy. One of the most reliable places that they turn to rate and review books is Goodreads.

Readers can show others what they’re reading and what they think of it quickly and easily.

Protect Your Brand by Being Proactive

You don’t necessarily have to register for a Goodreads author account unless you want to maintain some semblance of control over your books. Goodreads is owned by Amazon, meaning that all books available on Amazon should also be found on Goodreads.

This is also a great place to advertise specifically to people looking for new books to read. It’s a great investment in your books instead of Facebook ads spread out to people who may or may not have been in the market for a new read.

YouTube

YouTube is also a form of social media, but it’s often overlooked even though it could be one of the best social media for authors.

You can earn money for advertisements featured on your channel when you reach certain requirements for their YouTube Partner Program by hitting a certain number of hours watched (4,000) and a base number of subscribers (1,000).

Ideas for Long-Form Videos for Authors

Once you get comfortable being on the other side of the camera, you’ll find tons of ideas for video content. Here are a few creative ideas to get you started:

  • Writing tips for aspiring writers or self-published authors
  • Interviews with other writers in your genre
  • A day-in-the-life vlog that shows your writing process
  • Story highlights that encourage people to read your whole novel
  • Reviews of books that you loved and hated (and why!)
  • Affiliate marketing for tools and software that you use in your writing world

Pinterest

Last but not least, you might find it helpful to post regularly on Pinterest. Most people who use the platform are not authors, but using this visual search engine to create a following around your books can be helpful.

You can use Pinterest to post pictures of things that inspire you or things that influence your books. The best part is that most people aren’t looking for engagement from you in Pinterest in the same way that they might come to accept it from other social media for writers. Users rarely leave comments that warrant a reply from you directly.

Sharing Ideas Rather than Personal Images

If you hate putting your face on your work, you might want to consider Pinterest, as you can share visual ideas rather than personal images. For example, you could create a board based on the visuals that you use to create settings and characters for your book.

This gives people a behind-the-scenes look at your process without needing to attach your image to it — unless you want to!

Pinterest for Fiction vs. Nonfiction

Depending on what kind of author you are, you can approach Pinterest users in several different ways. Fiction writers might use social media platforms to post the images that inspire them or even the tools they use to keep their writing on the rails.

You can even use it to keep track of publications that you have all around the web if you happen to be a freelance writer as well as an author.

You can do something similar with non-fiction works. Post articles and research that you found interesting and influenced your writing process.

Final Thoughts: What is the Best Social Media for Authors?

The truth is that there is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to the best social media for authors. Instead, the most important thing is to select a platform you can keep up with and regularly engage with your audience here.

Select one or two of these social media platforms and go all in with them, engaging with your audience and posting content. Experiment to see which platforms work best for your writing career!

By Ashley Simpson

Ashley is an experienced freelance writer with an enthusiasm for finding creative ways to earn money online. She uses her passion for words to share what she has learned with the world.

She spends most of her time blogging for a multitude of websites and consuming everything she can get her hands on in relation to personal finance and side hustles.

Sourced from Niche Pursuits

Read More
By
In News

How To Make Money With YouTube Shorts in Four Simple Steps

No Comments

By Sara Friedman

Short-form video is on fire right now. From TikTok to Instagram Reels to YouTube Shorts, everyone is trying their hand at mastering split-second content.

When done right, those little videos can pack a big punch and, more importantly, make creators some real money.

Creators like Jade Beason are paving the way to success on YouTube with short- and long-form videos alike. Beason is one of many amazing creators in the HubSpot YouTube Network, the video destination for business builders.

Check out her video for a detailed step-by-step guide on how you can make money with YouTube Shorts today — and also look over the key takeaways below:

1. Choose Your Content Strategy

Before we dive into how to monetize your shorts, you’ll need to first choose a content strategy for the videos themselves.

There are three main strategies to choose from:

Repurposing viral content 

The lowest-lift content strategy is to repurpose other creators’ content from platforms like TikTok or Instagram. While many YouTubers do build their channels this way, use this strategy cautiously if your ultimate goal is to build a personal brand.

Repurposing your existing content 

For a more original tactic that still will save you time, you can repurpose your own content from other platforms. If you regularly post videos to TikTok or Instagram, you can recycle that content as shorts on your YouTube channel.

Tip: Make sure your repurposed content doesn’t have watermarks on it from other social platforms. You can use an app like SnapTik to remove watermarks.

Creating new content 

The highest-effort — but possibly highest-reward — content strategy is to create YouTube-native content from scratch.

This will of course take more time than repurposing existing videos, but it will also increase the odds that the content performs well since it will be specifically designed for YouTube.

Regardless of which strategy you choose, monitor your channel’s analytics carefully to understand which type of content is performing well, and which is not.

2. Join the YouTube Shorts Partner Program

Once you’ve created your channel and established which content strategy is right for you, you can start exploring monetization options.

The YouTube Shorts Partner Program is a good option for any creator who meets the eligibility requirements of 1k subscribers and either 4k watch hours OR 10m views from the last 90 days.

Since brands pay YouTube to advertise in the space between shorts — the ads that play as a user scrolls through shorts — the platform makes money directly from those advertisements.

The Shorts Program pools all of that revenue and then divides among all its Partner Program members each month, allocating money based on the percentage of views each creator received. Creators then take home 45% of their allocated amount — YouTube takes 55%.

(If the total monthly ad revenue was $1k, and you earned 10% of all views in a given month, you would be allocated $100 and take home a total of $45.)

Joining the program is a good idea for any creator as there’s no downside: It doesn’t impact your performance or the audience experience — it just opens a new door for monetization.

3. Establish Brand Partnerships

When most creators think of making money on YouTube, they’re thinking about brand partnerships, also known as sponsorships.

This is when a brand pays creators for them to mention their product or service in their video content. Where things get tricky: Shorts are only 60 seconds long, and fitting sponsored-brand content can be challenging, especially when trying to make it natural.

Creators should aim at making these placements feel as organic as possible, as engaging your audience is always the No. 1 priority. It can help to look for brands who work with other short-form content creators because they’ll likely understand the challenges and restrictions more.

A way to make more money: Bundle your Short with another deliverable to make sure you earn a decent income from your partnership.

For example, you could offer YouTube community posts (which are essentially Facebook posts on YouTube) as another type of post to get more from a partnership once it’s in motion.

4. Use Affiliate Links

Affiliate marketing is when you promote a brand, product, or service in your videos and earn a commission on those sales.

For example, if you film every YouTube Short from a desk chair, and then link that desk chair on your channel, each time a viewer clicks on that link and buys the chair, you get a commission.

This is a great tactic for creators who are just starting out with short-form video as you don’t need any subscribers to use affiliate links — or to make money from them.

It’s also a win-win-win: The brand you’ve partnered with sells a product, you make a commission, and your viewer gets both a product recommendation, and, hopefully, a new item they’re happy with.

Whichever strategy you choose (or you can use them all) to make money from Shorts, it always comes back to the content. Focus on making content your viewers will want to watch, and the rest will fall into place.

By Sara Friedman

Sourced from HubSpot

Read More
By
Load More