Twitter was never a major traffic driver for publishers, but it’s driving fewer clicks than ever, Chartbeat says, especially for small news outlets.
Twitter’s role as a source of traffic to news publishers has been diminishing for years, according to data published by content analytics firm Chartbeat.
In April 2018, 1.9% of all traffic to news publishing sites came from Twitter, but in April 2023, the traffic amounted to 1.2%, and hit a low of 1.1% in February.
Small news publishers in particular have seen their Twitter referral traffic drop significantly. In April 2018, 486 small publishers (those with less than 10,000 daily page views) received 10.1 million page views from Twitter referrals. But last month, they received a paltry 186,930 views, a decline of 98%.
Meanwhile, as Press Gazettenotes, medium-sized publishers saw their traffic decline by 40% over the same period, with 3.7 million views in April 2023 compared to 6.1 million five years earlier. Page referrals for medium-sized publishers hit a brief peak in March 2020, when many nations locked down due to the pandemic, with 8.6 million views.
Facebook is still a larger source of referral traffic. News sites relied on the social media site for 12.68% of their total traffic last year. This compares to 11.96% in 2021 and 13.01% in 2020.
The statistics show that Twitter’s page referrals have been declining for some time, well before Elon Musk took over the platform in October 2022.
According to Press Gazzette, the news sites that have seen the largest drops in traffic from Twitter include the Kyiv Independent, falling 61% between September 2022 and April this year, while Buzzfeed.com saw a 60% drop since April 2021, and The Independent saw a drop of 56%.
Meanwhile, bucking the declining trend, British tabloid The Sun saw a 23% increase in page views since Musk took over Twitter and Fox News has seen a 54% increase since 2021.
Three principles of Apple’s branding and positioning in the market.
n the fast-paced world of technology, where innovation is constant, one company has stood out by saying no more often than yes–Apple. This idea of selectivity was recently emphasized by Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services. It has become a core principle of Apple’s brand identity, contributing to its unrivalled success and reputation for excellence in design and technology.
Selectivity
Cue highlighted that as a company grows larger, it becomes easy to think it can do anything or everything, but Apple knows this is not true. Apple’s ability to say no to numerous ideas and opportunities is crucial to maintaining focus and ensuring quality execution.
Research supports the premise that selective decision-making is advantageous for businesses. Focusing on a narrow range of products can lead to improved profitability over the long term.
Discipline and focus
By practicing discipline and saying no to endeavours that don’t align with its core strengths, Apple demonstrates a focused approach to product development. This discipline allows Apple to allocate resources effectively and concentrate on delivering exceptional user experiences where it matters most.
Apple’s ability to stay disciplined and focused is crucial in a rapidly evolving market. Research published in the Harvard Business Review emphasizes the significance of disciplined execution in strategy, stating that companies that maintain focus and avoid unnecessary diversification tend to outperform their peers.
Quality over quantity
Apple’s brand identity is synonymous with premium quality, exclusivity, and attention to detail. By selectively choosing which projects to pursue, Apple can prioritize quality over quantity. Cue mentioned that an idea at Apple only makes it off the drawing board if it’s something the company knows it can execute well and if it’s something their customers really care about.
Research supports the significance of quality in shaping brand perception. A study published in the Journal of Consumer Research found that perceived quality positively influences brand evaluations and intentions to purchase. It’s true of Apple as well: A focus on quality contributes to brand desirability and loyalty.
The concept of saying no has proved to be a winning strategy for Apple. Research supports the advantages of selective decision-making, disciplined execution, and a focus on quality. In a world of continuous innovation and digital disruption, it’s hard for leaders and organizations not to follow the next shiny object. The world remains captivated by Apple’s products not because the brand breaks novel ground, but because it steadfastly stays on its course, as it has always done.
Networking has been described as “getting to rub elbows with people who like to geek out about the same things you do.” As accurate (and as fun) as that sounds, growing our network virtually often lacks this joy. Most people are repulsed by cold outreach — both the act of doing the outreach and receiving it.
This fear of cold outreach exists for a reason: it has a history of being done so poorly. On a daily basis, I receive terrible cold outreach emails via LinkedIn. Here are just a few examples I’ve received in the last few months.
Would you consider responding to this one?
Example of failed cold outreach
Leadership Story Lab
No. And here’s why: there’s no personalization or specification. What “transaction” is he talking about? The phrase “I appreciate meeting and networking with successful people,” is as vague as it is cringeworthy. It makes the sender sound desperate to ingratiate himself with successful people when he cares neither their business nor them personally. Further, half the message is about the sender’s assistant Alan. The forced formalities and phony “I’ll have my people call your people” language make it appear that the sender is parading around in attempts to sound important—important enough to have an assistant named Alan.
No thanks. There is nothing sincere or inviting about this message. So let’s look at another example that isn’t quite as generic as the one above, but that still earned the same treatment: complete disregard. Here it is:
Esther, Our businesses and passion for storytelling have a lot in common. You can learn more at <link to my website>. I would like to see if you have an interest in being on our podcast. My background is in pharma, coaching, teaching and I have a PhD. I look forward to connecting.
The first sentence, even though awkwardly phrased, does make an attempt to show some connection between the sender and recipient, but it’s vague. It’s almost like saying, “We both ate breakfast this morning, so we have a lot in common.” And then, painfully, it only gets worse from there. The rest of the message is all about the sender. Their website, their degrees, their podcast, their interests.
This message is cold and transactional. I need X, you have X, I’ve got credentials, so give me X. There’s no joy or geeking out. There’s no conversation. What’s more, the message is shallow; it’s likely this exact message was probably sent to every other person on LinkedIn who has used the keyword “storytelling” in their bio. Who would want to respond to this message?
Let’s look at one more example of a failed cold outreach email. This one attempts to be more conversational and makes gestures toward personalization, but it is just as poorly received as the prior messages.
Incredible. You are an incredible inspiration to me.
We are all human however when I started to write this I hesitated multiple times. You are a wealth of knowledge. Which you know. My story is one of great sadness and over doing. Would you have time for a call?
I’d love to learn from you. Hopefully we can connect. I had to ask you …. especially after reading your book.
In this message, the sender again fails to make a convincing case that they know anything about the person she is trying to connect with. “You are incredible” and “You are a wealth of knowledge” fail as flattery because there’s no follow up with specification. What is so incredible? How has the sender come across this wealth of knowledge? What on earth is she talking about?
The second failure (beyond the poor grammar and run-on sentences) is that the self-deprecation raises red flags. While humility is a virtue that helps people connect, proverbially slouching through LinkedIn removes any joy or desire for connection. Why would someone want to connect with a person who seems to value their own potential so poorly?
The third failure is the call to action, “Would you have time for a call?” is as vague and meaningless as the sender’s flattery. If someone were to respond to this LinkedIn message, what would the phone call even be about?
From these three examples, we’ve learned what not to do:
Don’t be vague
Don’t be transactional
Don’t be pompous, listing your accomplishments and your personal assistants
Don’t be self-deprecating, apologizing for bothering the person
The Secret to Successful Online Networking
Think of a time when you were waiting in line at the airport and you struck up a conversation with the person in front you. The conversation flows easily. You discover you both travel frequently for your jobs and you trade tips on which airports have the best food choices. When it’s time to go through security, you part ways smiling. What was so pleasant about that interaction? You felt seen and understood. This is the scenario you want to create when networking on LinkedIn. How can you make the person you want to connect with feel seen and understood?
Let’s look at some real examples of networking experiences that received responses. In a prior article, filmmaker Bryce McNabb, shared how he networks on LinkedIn by commenting on posts. He observes that authenticity is key to cold outreach: “I didn’t want to be seen as fake and trying to get something from you. You can totally feel that and it’s offensive. So I didn’t force it. I made a point to only ever comment if I genuinely had something thoughtful to contribute.”
Unlike the cold emails above, commenting on a person’s posts is inherently more conversational. By default, you demonstrate your interest in their subject matter by reading their work and expanding on it or asking a good follow up question.
Another successful example of cold outreach also highlights authentic interest in the work of the person being reached out to:
Dear Jennifer,
Last night I was elated to read about your book, We Need To Talk: A Memoir About Wealth in the NYT article by Paul Sullivan. Serendipitously, I’ve been working with a research partner the last few months interviewing twenty-two first generation wealth creators.
What’s remarkable about your book is that you’re telling your story openly, something that is extremely hard to find. My interviewees were all either trusted friends or trusted friends of friends. We promised confidentiality and anonymity. And even then they were tentative to talk about their stories involving wealth.
The one thing I have going for the research is that no one had ever asked them the questions I am interested in. So they’re intrigued and ready to reflect.
I just ordered your book and am so looking forward to reading it. You must constantly be pinged by people. I hope you don’t mind my outreach. I hope to learn from your story so that the research report can be all that more enriching for the public.
The differences between the failed examples and this example, which elicited a response within hours of sending the message, are drastic, but let’s take a look. Here’s why this cold outreach email worked:
The specificity demonstrates sincerity. It is clear the sender of the email has a genuine interest in Jennifer’s story. The sender compliments Jennifer, but it’s authentic, personalized and specific. The sender shows why her work is so meaningful to her own work.
It’s about relationship building, not transaction. The sender is not asking for her to be on a podcast or to give her a free consultation. The sender is simply reaching out to say, I see you and I appreciate what you are doing.
When the sender does share about herself, it’s neither pompous nor self-deprecating. Rather, she is demonstrating her own personal investment in the subject matter.
Let’s take a look at the third example of networking that is short and simple.
Successful cold outreach message
Leadership Story Lab
Like Bryce’s approach, this example of a cold-outreach email focuses on carrying the conversation forward, simply and briefly. She acknowledges the recipient’s work and provides her interpretation in a way that demonstrates what she appreciates about it. In just one sentence the sender makes the recipient feel seen and understood.
The secret to successful networking on LinkedIn is this: Be human.
Humans thrive on conversation that is meaningful, specific, and demonstrates genuine interest and authenticity. So don’t be afraid to geek out and share authentically with a person you really want to connect with. You won’t regret it: You may find a new collaborator or business opportunity, or even a new friend.
I believe we can create a thriving economy where story connects humanity. The key is grasping the essence of one another. How do you really know a person? And how can you trust that a company truly has your best interest in mind? My late father advised me this way: Listen to their words. Observe their actions. Understand their hearts. Leaders, and the companies they lead, must have a consistent way of communicating what’s in their hearts through words and action. I am the author of the book “Let the Story Do the Work” and the CEO of Leadership Story Lab. I teach classical storytelling to modern leaders through my own practice, Kellogg School of Management and University of Zurich in Switzerland. They, in turn, use their stories to communicate authentically, inspire others and create lasting impact that they previously considered out of reach. Follow me on Twitter or Facebook, or email me.
Spending is forecast to reach $727.9 billion in 2023, and increase 4.7% next year
Advertising spend is expected to grow globally this year, with inflation driving it to $727.9 billion and $3 of every $5 going to digital channels over the next three years. However, according to Dentsu’s latest biannual global forecast, digital spend is likely to slow to single-digit growth in the future.
Dentsu is predicting a 3.3% rise globally in ad investment this year—up $23 billion from 2022—followed by a further increase of 4.7% in 2024 and 3.8% in 2025. The growth forecast has been downgraded by 0.2% since last December’s report due to macroeconomic factors.
The forecasts are provided for 58 markets including the Americas, Europe, Middle East and Africa, and Asia-Pacific across digital, television, print, out-of-home, audio and cinema.
Putting on the brakes
The previous forecast from Dentsu revealed that following a period of record spend, the ad sector would see a slowdown this year and in 2024 it’s expected to accelerate again to reach $762.5 billion, partially due to the Olympics and Paralympics in Paris, the UEFA European Championship and the U.S. presidential election.
We still expect global advertising spend to grow despite the economic uncertainty.
Peter Huijboom, CEO of international media, Dentsu
Digital ad spend will grow to $424.2 billion this year and account for 58.3% of all ad spend, increasing to 59.1% in 2024. While digital ad spend will continue to grow, it is expected to at a slower pace, 7.8% this year.
Emerging digital channels such as retail media and connected TV will remain in high demand, while programmatic buying is also set to increase by 14.4% to reach 71.4% of digital spend in 2023.
In revealing the latest forecast, Peter Huijboom, CEO of international media at Dentsu said: “For years now we’ve seen the industry pivot toward digital, more than doubling investment in the last five years thanks in part to the almost unlimited potential to reach, engage and sell to individual consumers. It has been one of the big drivers for growth, but with finite marketing budgets available to brands—it’s clear we are now starting to reach a point of digital maturation within the campaign mix alongside more traditional channels.”
He added that markets such as India, where digital was still in its “adolescence,” would continue to witness rapid growth in spending. Tech and platform innovations, alongside new channels and changed planning behaviours, would also mean that digital investment would still see “consistent growth” worldwide.
“We still expect global advertising spend to grow despite the economic uncertainty,” Huijboom highlighted in the report. “However, media price inflation is the true driver of this increase and hides the more lacklustre reality: 2023 will be a flat year for ad spend.”
Asia-Pacific is projected to grow the fastest in 2023 by 4.6%, followed by the Americas by 2.9% and EMEA by 1.9%. Earlier this year, reports on the U.K. market indicated that advertising spend there would virtually stagnate, with growth in spend of only 0.5%.
The Americas will witness the largest growth in ad spend at $334.9 billion
Spending increases across most media
One of the categories set to decline will be TV ad spend (-3.1%) at $170.2 billion by the end of the year, with positive growth expected to return next year. Print advertising will also continue to decline by 4.8% to $48.4 billion.
Media channels set for year-over-year increases are out-of-home (3.8%), cinema (2.1%) and audio (0.8%).
Search investment will be up by 8.9% to $150 billion, with search behaviour expanding from traditional search engines to social media and commerce platforms through innovation powered by artificial intelligence.
The forecast had not yet researched the impact that generative AI could have on the advertising sector and the potential opportunities it could afford brands, but it was mentioned by Huijboom as something that will be monitored in the future.
“Of course, we’re excited about the impact generative AI could have on our industry with the arrival of new in-channel opportunities for brands to embrace, so we’ll need to see if it remains the case.”
Twitter is now worth just one-third of what Elon Musk paid for the social-media platform, according to Fidelity, which recently marked down the value of its equity stake in the company.
Musk has acknowledged he overpaid for Twitter, which he bought for $44 billion, including $33.5 billion in equity. More recently, he said Twitter is worth less than half what he paid for it. It’s unclear how Fidelity arrived at its new, lower valuation or whether it receives any non-public information from the company.
Fidelity first reduced the value of its Twitter stake in November, to 44% of the purchase price. That was followed by further markdowns in December and February.
Twitter has struggled financially since Musk took over. After saddling the company with $13 billion of debt, Musk’s erratic decision making and challenges with content moderation led advertising revenue to decline by 50%, Musk said in March. An attempt to recoup that revenue by selling Twitter Blue subscriptions has so far failed to take off. At the end of March, less than 1% of Twitter’s monthly users had signed up.
Twitter didn’t specifically respond to a request for comment.
Musk’s investment in Twitter is now worth $8.8 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which uses Fidelity’s valuation to calculate the value of his holding. Musk spent more than $25 billion to acquire an estimated 79% stake in the company last year.
The latest markdown erases about $850 million from Musk’s $187 billion fortune, according to the index. Despite Twitter’s issues, Musk’s wealth is up more than $48 billion this year, largely due to a 63% surge in Tesla Inc.’s share price.
At the Google Marketing Live event, the search giant announced further plans for its AI tools, promising that it will ‘continue to shape the future of marketing’. Here are the five most important insights for marketers.
AI ads are launching in Search results
For marketers, the most interesting development is likely to be the integration of AI-generated ads into search results across Google’s properties, under the title of ‘Search Generative Experience (SGE)’. The ads, which take the user’s prompt or query and build out a few paragraphs of information with associated and relevant products, are set to be deployed across the US initially.
The ads will be distinguished from other search results and labelled as ‘sponsored’ in bold text.
It has been suggested by multiple marketers and analysts that search is set to be among the most thoroughly disrupted areas of marketing due to AI tools, explaining why Google is so keen to prove its existing search-based marketing options are compatible with the tech.
Human interaction is a must
Following that process, Google’s AI tech will generate a list of suggested keywords, images from both the company’s site or a stock library, and headlines for the ad. The advertiser will be able to provide feedback and fine-tune the ad before it is deployed into search. Ultimately, despite the hype around AI, it is being marketed as a tool that requires human sign-off before the ads are deployed.
Cheaper and faster
Despite the allure of the tech, the big selling point to marketers is around bringing the cost of advertising down. Maximizing marketing efficiencies are seen as a big priority for advertisers this year, so a large part of the selling point is around bringing costs down.
Google has stated that early adopters have reported 2% more conversions at a similar cost per conversion. Because the tool is integrated into the existing Search and Performance Max campaigns, there are no pricing differences for its use.
Generative AI images
In addition to the in-search ads, Google also announced that marketers in the US will be among the first to use its generative AI tool for product images. Noting that multiple images have an impact on the success of ads – generating up to 76% increase in impressions and a 32% increase in clickthrough – Google’s team also pointed out that it is costly to manually create those ads.
As a result, the new tool is designed to streamline that process, by using generative AI to create multiple iterations of an image on the fly with different backgrounds, colour tones, increased resolution and more.
Ahead of the curve
Microsoft founder Bill Gates has recently stated that AI-powered personal assistants will severely impact the business models of Google and Amazon in particular. Speaking at the AI Forward 2023, he said: “Whoever wins the personal agent, that’s the big thing, because you will never go to a search site again, you will never go to a productivity site, you’ll never go to Amazon again”.
Google, like most of the major tech companies, has been working on AI tools for years, and it already powers many marketing transactions behind the scenes. With the advent of consumer-facing tools like ChatGPT, however, the pressure has been on large tech firms to prove they are keeping pace with generative AI. An early demonstration of Google’s AI tool Bard was met with a negative reception due to a perceived error in one of its answers, and has in part led to concerns of safety and misinformation across the AI ecosystem.
For Google, then, the opportunity related to AI-generated ads with its search results is to demonstrate to marketers that it is still at the head of the pack with the new tech. By providing figures that demonstrate the cost- and time-saving nature of the tool it will be hoping to prove Bill Gates wrong and ensure that marketers continue spending on its owned and operated platforms.
A few years ago, you couldn’t go three sentences at an advertising conference without hearing the word “omnichannel.” The notion of omnichannel marketing went hand-in-hand with digital transformation, and promised to seamlessly integrate the consumer experience across digital and physical environments.
It was the ultimate challenge for the CMO in 2015. But since then, many of us have come to understand that omnichannel marketing is a myth. Seamlessly integrating experiences across environments, it turns out, is not exactly what humans want. What we actually want is context-dependent experiences that are customized based on channel and behaviour. And for those experiences to be personalized, but also make us feel like part of an exclusive community – all while protecting the sanctity of our data.
Enter branded ecosystems
So what’s the next iteration of omnichannel? How do you capture the touchpoints that you have with consumers, but honour that those interactions should look different depending on the moment and the environment?
Today’s best brand marketers are those that thoughtfully orchestrate interactions across an ecosystem (a collection of brand touchpoints) in ways that build sustainable and context-based relationships with audiences. In other words, being intentional about building ecosystems can foster deeper relationships across environments – from mobile devices to in-person events and immersive web experiences.
One of the best environments to create those relationships has always been in real life. The dwell time and actual engagement with in-person events consistently over-delivers compared to other areas of channel marketing and the post-pandemic landscape has shifted attention toward physical touchpoints and experiences.
Capturing this formula and experience and implementing it into bespoke ecosystems is the creative challenge of marketers today. Moreover, owned ecosystems can give advertisers first party data at a time when direct relationships with consumers is more critical than ever.
The new data landscape
When Google introduced paid search, it solidified our ad-supported internet. For a while, advertisers felt like they had hit the Holy Grail – brands had never had access to such rich and actionable data about how consumers behave.
Fast-forward to 2023, and consumers are increasingly aware of the ramifications of an internet that’s powered by ads. From political polarization to mental health crises, it turns out that exploiting our digital behaviour has serious consequences.
This has spurred a call for legislation which has been codified with Europe’s GDPR and California’s CCPA and subsequent CPRA. These pieces of legislation are largely felt to be incomplete, but they signal the beginning of a reckoning with the “surveillance capitalism” structure that’s been the bread and butter for Big Tech.
Even Google responded, vowing to rid Chrome of the third party tracking cookie by next year. This move could turn digital advertising on its head and leave advertisers and publishers scrambling for ways to meaningfully target consumers online. Meanwhile, digital ad practices have made it all the way to the US Supreme Court, with a case about the potential for algorithmic distribution to lead to violence.
In light of heightened sensitivity to data privacy, in addition to emerging technologies like generative AI that threaten to use data in more invasive ways, the major consulting firms point to trust as a key focus area for consumers.
What does this mean for brands? Traditional digital ad targeting is on the decline, and a premium is placed on direct relationships between brand and consumer. Put another way, first party data is the new Holy Grail in the advertising ecosystem and the brands without a first party data strategy are at risk of becoming obsolete.
Experiential media
Advertisers pairing back investments in social media and programmatic advertising are likely to point to brand safety concerns and budget cuts as a reason to moderate display ad spend. As social media content becomes more extreme and polarizing, and targeting becomes less certain, brands forced to rethink their digital ad allocations are looking at where display advertising is most effective in their customer journey.
What they’re learning is that display advertising, at least with respect to conversion and ROI, may be more lucrative in theory. In The Subprime Attention Crisis by Tim Hwang, Hwang paints a picture of an advertising ecosystem built on a house of cards, rife with fraud and falsely attributed ad conversions.
Faced with budget cuts, an uncertain economy and a precarious tech industry and supply chain, advertisers need to identify media buys that are sure to provide a return on investment while authentically engaging with and providing value to real audiences. It turns out, the road to ROI is to own the supply.
Investing in building owned ecosystems is one way to have unmitigated access to data that’s not corrupted by advertising fraud like bots or beholden to the walled gardens of Big Tech. We call this type of media buy “experiential media,” and it’s attracting advertisers for good reason.
Creating an owned infrastructure for meaningful touch points with brand ambassadors has several perks. Ensuring accurate and transparent relationships with consumer data enables a brand to personalize without overstepping privacy bounds. Moreover, owning the media channel eliminates a large percentage of ad spend that’s traditionally spent on fraud at a time when marketing leaders need to be more agile with their approach to brand-building. The media channels that will earn spend focus on advertising that leads directly to conversion and increased lifetime value of the consumer.
Moving fans through the ecosystem
In short, experiential media understands that brand experiences are far more than data points. It captures an understanding of how to build a brand across all landscapes simultaneously while fortifying relationships into increased lifetime value of the consumer through reciprocal exchange of value.
It’s different from omnichannel marketing, in that it activates a customer base through meaningful campaigns, and leverages the power of different channels for different events while capturing data transparently and mindfully to serve and delight members of the ecosystem.
Here’s how it works: brands orchestrate touch points across platforms in the ecosystem, from display advertising and earned media to digital and in-person events. Touch points serve as an entry point into a platform of brand-managed exclusive experiences that enhance relationships and move customers from a transactional piece of data to a complex individual in an enriching and engaging community.
If the pandemic taught us anything, it’s that integration and collaboration is a must and real human relationships matter. Advertisers that are thoughtful about the integration across channels through experiential media spend will be the brand leaders in the new age of advertising.
Mike White has been a leader in the brand experience industry for 25 years. His agency, Lively Worldwide, is leading the charge for the future to be hybrid. The agency was launched in 2017 to champion Live Marketing, which Mike describes as the sweet spot between physical and digital where they create engaging campaigns for brands. Mike has created immersive, interactive, and entertaining experiences for Spotify, Ericsson, Twitter, Virgin, Mazda, and The Guardian, making him one of the leading figures in the world of hybrid activity. Mike is a hybrid and virtual strategist, live marketing leader, speaker, and influencer.
Branding means creating an image in the minds of your audience.
Few phrases generate grimaces from professionals at the same rate as “personal branding.”
In fact, be honest—did your stomach turn a little bit when you just read it?
For many, when they read that phrase, their minds immediately go to people who have ego-driven, “Hey, look at me” kind of brands.
In my experience, having this kind of aversion to personal branding is typically a good sign because it means that you’re not interested in building visibility focused on your ego which is a foundational mindset for building a great brand. But just because many people don’t build their brand the right way doesn’t mean you can’t—or shouldn’t.
Your personal brand matters more today than ever before, and it not only needs to be visible and authentic, but also must build trust before you get in the room. Today, the first place most potential employers, partners, clients, and employees will come in contact with you likely won’t be in person—it will be online after a quick search of your name.
The frank reality is that your brand is what Google says it is. Branding means creating an image in the minds of your audience, and if the first image your audience sees is online, you need to be intentional about it.
The good news is that the more visible and authentic your personal brand is, the more of an impact you can make on others, and the more leverage it gives you personally. Here are five ways to build a personal brand that is focused on impact, not ego:
1. Understand your “why”
The best personal brands are built when an individual is focused on being the messenger, not the message. To do this well, you must have a clear impact that you want to make. Get clear on your message from the start because building a strong brand takes commitment.
2. Conduct an online-brand audit
Before you can focus on growing your brand, you must understand your foundation. Do you have a “brand name” you can own? If someone does find you, is what they find going to encourage them to take a next step with you, or cause them to question whether you are the right fit? This first impression is happening based on your online brand whether you like it or not, so you should be thoughtful about it.
3. Build authority-by-association
Ideally, you want the visuals that make up your brand to say what you shouldn’t say about yourself. For instance, “She’s a credible thought leader with something to teach and not an operator with something to sell.” Make sure you are associating yourself with brands that your audience knows, trusts, and respects by going beyond stock photos or headshots. Be sure to highlight any media coverage you may have received, photos of you speaking, and other images that establish trust by putting you in a setting that builds credibility. Even if you don’t have a ton of media or speaking experience, you can showcase visuals that put you in a setting that connotes authority.
4. Create an intentional content strategy
Most well-meaning people who try to build thought leadership end up focusing entirely on strictly professional content, which often results in slow growth. Instead, blend “you-driven” content (your perspective, pictures, and stories), news-driven content (timely content that connects to the headlines), and relationship-driven content (such as an interview series or podcast) with your professional content.
5. Be your fullest self
In this age of ChatGPT, more content is getting created than ever before, so the only thing that will set you apart is you. Resist the urge to play some kind of role you think you need to play to be a thought leader, and instead be more of yourself by leaning into your personality, interests, and quirks. This will give real value to your audience. Who you are and what makes you different is ultimately the only reason why people will follow you instead of all the other choices out there.
Whether you like it or not, others are getting an image of you online, so be intentional about creating one that accelerates trust and is authentic to who you are. By doing so, you’ll create a bigger impact and avoid the ego-driven branding trap.
We hear a lot about influencers in marketing circles today. It’s a relatively new term, but the concept is not a new one. When mass media advertising was king, brands used the term “endorsement.” The trend skyrocketed in the 1980s, leading to sports celebrities like Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Serena Williams and Cristiano Ronaldo, who reportedly earned more money from endorsements than from athletics.
The word “influencer” arose in the early 2000s along with the rise of reality shows like The Bachelor, Big Brother and especially Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Then came the great leveller, social media, where user-generated content transformed some everyday content creators into influencers in their own right.
Distinguishing Between Content Creators And Influencers
It’s become important to distinguish between content creators and influencers in our current social media landscape. Today, influencers typically focus on compensation from the brands they promote, whereas content creators engage in labors of love. Content creators produce their work because they’re passionate about self-expression. Brands may approach them with unsolicited sponsorship offers, but compensation isn’t their top priority.
I believe this distinction explains the backlash arising toward influencer marketing. Increasingly, social media users are demanding authenticity in content marketing while denouncing sponsored content.
From a hard-nosed business perspective, social media platforms produce audiences to sell to advertisers. They view content as the raw material that drives their audience-manufacturing processes. Media outlets have always chosen content that appeals to their sponsors’ targeted demographic. However, there’s a fine line between content that attracts an audience and content created to exploit it.
The difference has to do with intent. Social media audiences trust passionate content creators who have a sincere desire to share experiences. They also tend to shun those influencers they deem to be in it for the money.
Authenticity Outweighs Production Values On Social Media
Content that is raw, unfiltered and even amateurish can easily go viral if it has something genuine and heartfelt to say. That’s why industry watchers see video as the future of content marketing. It’s harder to be insincere on video, and video imagery is more difficult (although not impossible) to fake.
Raw footage uploaded straight from a smartphone has a distinctive authenticity. For example, heavily doctored videos depicting pristine tourist destinations lower trust, while unadulterated footage of locations in their natural state can inspire confidence. Recruiting paid influencers may work for massive, multinational brands, but I would argue that neighborhood businesses should focus their social media marketing on attracting authentic content creators.
For example, local restaurants tend to benefit far more from sincere online reviews from paying customers than from “internet-famous” influencers. Customer-generated videos capturing a restaurant’s ambiance may be the most trustworthy marketing content available today.
Case Study: Frankensons
Recently, Joseph Labour of the Today Show reported on an encounter between a local Las Vegas pizzeria, Frankensons, and an up-and-coming TikToker named Keith Lee. Without informing Frank Steele, Frankensons’ owner, an employee of the struggling restaurant emailed Lee, inviting him to sample the fare.
Lee received no compensation for his onsite video review, and paid for all the food he sampled, leaving him out of pocket by $86.73. He gave the venue a sincere, positive review, specifically recommending the lemon pepper wings and the garlic knots.
Only hours after Lee’s video review went live, Frankensons had a new lease on life. The TikToker’s review drew over 31 million views in its first week.
“Our phone never stopped ringing,” Steele told the Today Show. “I’ve sold more lemon pepper wings in the last two days than I have in the past four months. I made more garlic knots yesterday and the day before than I’ve ever made.”
This is just one example of the impact sincere video reviews from objective content creators can deliver to local restaurateurs. Lee’s unpaid recommendation did more for Frankensons’ traffic than any paid advertising could ever have achieved.
I believe content creators are the future for business promotion. Online customer videos can lift establishments above the deluge of questionable and ineffective reviews swamping the internet. To succeed, businesses should focus on finding ways to attract authentic content creators to their locations. It costs nothing, and the results can be priceless.
Everything you need to know to get started with Bard, Google’s experimental conversational AI chatbot.
Bard is Google’s artificial intelligence chatbot which generates responses to user-provided natural language prompts. In response to a prompt, Bard can pull information from the internet and present a response. The large language model behind Bard delivers the response in natural language — in contrast to a standard Google search, where a result consists of a snippet of information or a list of links.
Google announced Bard in February 2023 after OpenAI and Microsoft both garnered attention for AI chatbot systems. And in May 2023, Bard and related AI advancements featured prominently in Google’s I/O event.
According to Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, Bard is “an experimental conversational AI service.”
In fact, Google places the word “Experiment” next to the system’s name to show it is still a work in progress. Additionally, Google indicates that “Bard may display inaccurate or offensive information that doesn’t represent Google’s views” in a disclaimer placed below the prompt box.
Bard’s prompt-response process can help you obtain answers faster than a standard Google search sequence.
A classic Google search requires you to enter keywords, follow links, review content, then compile the results or repeat the process with a refined keyword search string.
You also can suggest a specific length if you want a particular degree of brevity, such as “Please summarize in 100 words.”
Google Bard can compare
Bard can compare two or more items. In many cases, when you ask Bard to compare things, the system will display some of the data in a table. For example, if you prompt Bard:
Compare a Pixel 7, Pixel 7a and Samsung Galaxy S23.
Similarly, you may ask Bard to compare web pages.
Google Bard can suggest
Bard may serve as a suggestion engine for products, services or activities. Enter the title of books, music or movies you like, then ask Bard to suggest others. This can be useful when you’re researching unfamiliar topics. For example, you might try:
I am interested in learning the history of machine learning.
Can you recommend 10 useful and highly respected books on the topic?
Google Bard can explain
When you want to learn about a topic or historical event, you can ask Bard to explain it to you. If you like, you may suggest a desired level in order to guide the system toward an explanation that may be either easier to understand or more detailed. For a general overview of a core technology that helps make Bard work, you might ask:
Can you explain the basics of how neural networks operate? Explain it to me as if I am in my first year of college.
Google Bard can brainstorm
One of the best uses of a chatbot is to gather a long list of ideas. Ask Bard to “Brainstorm ideas for…” followed by whatever topic you wish, such as a new project, promotional effort or paper. Encourage Bard to provide creative, unusual or inventive ideas for additional variety in the responses.
Google Bard can code and debug
In April 2023, Bard added the ability to create and help debug code in more than 20 programming languages. When you ask for code, make sure to specify the programming language and describe in as much detail as possible the code you need. If the code generated doesn’t work, let Bard know what exactly went awry, and ask for a suggested fix or for help interpreting an error code.
Bard can help you write, too. As with most prompts, provide as much detail about the topic, length, format (blog post, poem, essay, book report, etc.) and style as possible. If you have a rough outline of a blog post, you might include the desired points in your prompt. For this section of text, for example, you might prompt:
Using the following points as an outline, can you draft
examples and explanatory text? "Bard can summarize. Bard can compare.
Bard can suggest. Bard can explain. Bard can brainstorm. Bard can draft
text. Bard can code (and debug). Bard can search."
The responses Bard generated were reasonable and might have required only a little editing and correction to be usable.
Google makes it easy to move Bard text elsewhere. Select the response export button to move content to either a new Google Doc or Gmail. Alternatively, select the More button (the three vertical dots), then choose Copy to place the response text on the system clipboard for pasting into any app of your choice.
Bard can search
Since Bard can access internet content, many conventional keyword searches will also work in Bard. Ask about current news topics, weather forecasts or pretty much any standard keyword search string. However, Bard will provide responses mostly in conventional text, sometimes supplemented with images, whereas Google search may show content in custom formats (e.g., weather forecasts often display a chart). When you seek a set of links, switch out of Bard back to a standard Google search.
Bard can be wrong
Bard can get things wrong. Never rely solely on content provided in Bard responses without verification. When Bard does provide an inaccurate, misleading or inappropriate response, select the thumbs down icon to convey to the system that it provided a bad response. Remember, Bard is an experiment.
When was Google Bard released?
At launch in March 2023, Google limited Bard access via a waitlist to people with personal Google accounts. In early May 2023, Google eliminated the waitlist and made Bard more widely available.
How can you get access to Google Bard?
To access Bard, go to https://bard.google.com in a web browser, and sign in with a Google account (Figure A).
Figure A
Go to bard.google.com in any modern browser, then sign in with a Google account.
If your account is managed by a Google Workspace administrator, such as an account for work or school, the administrator may adjust settings to either allow or prevent access to Bard. Check with your administrator, should you have any questions.
If you are a Google Workspace administrator and wish to review or adjust the settings that affect Bard availability for people in your organization, access the Admin console | Apps | Additional Google services | Early Access Apps, then modify the Service status and Core Data Access Permissions as desired.
What countries and languages is Google Bard available in?
As of May 10, 2023, Google expanded Bard to support Japanese and Korean in addition to U.S. English. Simultaneously, Google made Bard available in more than 180 countries and territories. However, Bard was not made available on that date to people in European Union countries, such as Germany, France, Italy and Spain. By the end of 2023, Google intends to make Bard available in the 40 most spoken languages.
Can I manage my Bard activity history?
Yes, Google gives you control over your Bard activity history, much as it does your search and browsing history. To adjust the settings, select Bard Activity from the left menu. Then, you may choose whether Bard Activity history is on or off (Figure B).
Figure B
While access to previous prompts can be helpful, Google gives you full control over whether or not your Bard Activity history is stored.
If on, you may choose to Auto-delete activity after three, 18 or 36 months or not at all. Additionally, you may access your Bard activity history, which can be helpful if you wish to review or rerun a previous prompt.
Is Google Bard free to use?
Yes, Google Bard is available to use for free. As of May 2023, Google Bard remains free of advertising, as well.
Is Google Bard using PaLM 2?
In May 2023 Google announced that Bard had switched to using Pathways Language Model 2 rather than Language Model for Dialogue Applications. Google promotes PaLM 2 as a “state-of-the-art language model with improved multilingual, reasoning and coding capabilities.”
Google plans to make PaLM 2 available in four distinct sizes: Gecko, Otto, Bison and Unicorn. The distinct sizes are intended to serve a wide range of computing environments. The smallest, Gecko, is intended to be functional even on a mobile device without an internet connection.
What are alternatives to Google Bard?
The ability to access current internet content is a key differentiator between Google Bard and many other chatbot AI systems. Many large language model chatbot systems were trained on older data and lack access to information about current events. This inability to browse the internet limits the usefulness of many of these systems.
Three alternatives to Bard that can access current internet content and are worth exploring are:
Perplexity.ai: Available free on the web with account sign in optional.
Bing: Available free on the web in Microsoft Edge with Microsoft account sign in.
ChatGPT Plus: Available for $20 per month in a web browser or in an iPhone app. In late May 2023, Microsoft announced that the free edition of ChatGPT will gain access to Bing, as well.
