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By Jack Kelly

As we stand on the cusp of a new year, the job market continues to evolve at an unprecedented pace, driven by technological advancements and shifting economic realities. In this dynamic environment, professionals across all industries are recognizing the critical importance of upskilling and reskilling to remain competitive and relevant.

The coming year presents a golden opportunity to invest in yourself by acquiring the in-demand skills that employers are actively seeking, ensuring you’re well-positioned for career growth and new opportunities in an increasingly digital and automated world.

The rapid acceleration of digital transformation, catalysed by recent global events, has reshaped the way businesses operate and the skills they require from their workforce. From artificial intelligence and data analytics to cloud computing and cybersecurity, the demand for tech-savvy professionals continues to soar across sectors.

In-Demand Hard Skills For The New Year

As traditional job roles evolve and new positions emerge, the ability to learn and adapt quickly has become a critical asset in itself. By proactively developing these in-demand hard skills, you not only enhance your marketability but also position yourself to thrive in the face of future disruptions and opportunities in the job market.

1. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

AI and machine learning are becoming indispensable skills in the job market, with their importance growing exponentially across industries. The demand for AI-related skills is 3.5 times higher than the average job skill, reflecting the rapid integration of these technologies in various sectors, a PwC report revealed.

This surge in demand is driven by the transformative potential of AI and ML in the workplace. This fast-emerging technology is expected to automate up to 300 million jobs in the United States and Europe, according to investment bank Goldman Sachs, while simultaneously creating 97 million new roles that require advanced technical skills, as predicted by the World Economic Forum. This shift is not just about job displacement; it’s about job evolution. Companies adopting AI are planning to expand their workforce, with 91% of firms integrating AI aiming to increase their employee numbers by 2025.

2. Cloud Computing

Cloud computing skills will remain in high demand, as the industry continues its explosive growth and transformation of business operations across sectors. Gartner forecasts global end-user cloud spending to reach $723 billion in 2025, a 21.5% increase from the previous year.

The rise of generative AI and the need for integrated platforms are accelerating cloud adoption, with 90% of organizations projected to have hybrid cloud deployments by 2027. As organizations continue to migrate their applications and workloads to the cloud, with 48% planning to move at least half of their applications within a year, proficiency in cloud computing will be crucial for professionals looking to stay relevant in the rapidly evolving job market of 2025.

3. Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity skills are highly coveted, as the digital landscape faces unprecedented threats and skyrocketing costs associated with cybercrimes. By 2025, global cybercrime costs are projected to reach a staggering $10.5 trillion annually, according to a report by Cybercrime Magazine.

This surge in cybercrime is accompanied by a severe shortage of qualified professionals in the field. The cybersecurity job market is expected to grow by 33% between 2023 and 2033, with an estimated 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity positions worldwide by the end of 2025. This talent gap is further exacerbated by the rapid evolution of cyber threats, with encrypted threats increasing by 92% in 2024 and malware rising by 30% in the first half of the same year.

4. Data Analysis

Businesses are increasingly relying on transforming unstructured data into actionable insights to drive growth, improve user satisfaction and maintain a competitive edge in the market. The demand for data analytics expertise is surging across industries, with trends like AI-enhanced analytics, natural language processing and advanced data visualization reshaping how organizations leverage their data assets.

As organizations grapple with the challenges of data quality and governance, professionals skilled in ensuring data integrity and implementing effective data strategies will be in high demand, making data analysis an essential skill.

5. Digital Marketing

In today’s digital landscape, businesses are leveraging online social platforms to connect with and engage their target audiences and customers.

With global digital ad spending projected to surpass $740 billion in 2024, and over 5 billion social media users worldwide, proficiency in digital marketing strategies will be crucial for professionals looking to thrive in the competitive job market.

Feature Image Credit: Getty

By Jack Kelly

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

Jack Kelly has been a senior contributor for Forbes since 2018, covering topics in career development, job market trends and workplace dynamics. His articles often focus on practical advice for job seekers and employees, as well as covering the latest news impacting workers so they can make informed decisions about their careers. Read More

Sourced from Forbes

By  and 

Summary.

A bi-annual poll of U.S. marketing leaders found that social media investments have declined to their lowest level in seven years. An analysis of poll data suggests that lack of strategy fit, weak returns, and new competition from retail media may help explain this dip. Researchers leverage their findings to offer suggestions to marketers on how to overcome past strategy misalignment in order to continue to benefit from social media’s immediacy and pervasiveness, including through the use of Gen AI.

In June 2020, social media spending surged to 23% of marketing budgets when the pandemic forced consumers to stay home and marketers pivoted to digital channels for outreach. A new, heightened focus on social media accelerated the digitization of marketing so that by 2022, fully 57% of spending was dedicated to digital marketing. The recent adoption of new marketing technology (Martech) to automate processes and the use of AI to generate content have driven digitization further into business models.

By  and 

Christine Moorman is the T. Austin Finch, Sr. Professor of Business Administration, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University. She is founder and director of The CMO Survey.
Koen Pauwels is the Associate Research Dean and Distinguished Professor of Marketing at Northeastern University and co-director of its Digital, Analytics, Technology and Automation (DATA) Initiative.

Sourced from Harvard Business Review

By Aurelie Sauthier

The boundaries betwee and content marketing are becoming less distinct for experts in our industry, prompting an important question: Is content marketing the future of influencer marketing? Central to this discussion are the strategic interplay between earned and paid influence, and the innovative approach of turning authentic, earned content into digital assets for paid advertising.

The Dynamics Of Earned Vs. Paid Influence

Influencer marketing fundamentally relies on two forms of influence:

• Earned influence consists of organic endorsements from influencers who genuinely support a brand or product. It is characterized by authenticity and trust, as influencers freely share their unfiltered experiences with their followers. This form of influence is highly valued for its credibility and deeper engagement.

• Paid influence involves compensating influencers for promoting a brand or product. While this provides brands with more control over messaging and reach, paid content can appear less genuine to some audiences. However, when executed thoughtfully, paid influence effectively amplifies a brand’s presence.

Content Marketing: The Bridge Between Earned And Paid Influence

Content marketing, which focuses on creating valuable, relevant and engaging content, is becoming a key strategy to bridge the gap between earned and paid influence. To deepen connections with audiences, brands are increasingly repurposing authentic, earned content into digital assets for paid ads.

This offers several advantages:

• Authenticity at scale: Repurposing genuine earned content for paid ads maintains the trust and credibility that come from organic endorsements, even in a paid context.

• Broader reach: Turning earned content into digital assets helps reach audiences beyond the influencer’s community, maximizing content impact.

• Cost efficiency: Repurposing existing content can be more cost-effective than producing new content, optimizing return on investment.

• Extended usability: You can use the content you’ve transformed into digital assets across multiple platforms and campaigns, enhancing its longevity and adaptability.

How My Agency Merges Earned And Paid Influence

In our always-on influencer programs, we try to always combine earned and paid influence to maximize impact for our clients. For the earned portion, we focus on securing as much in-feed video content as possible rather than ephemeral stories. This tactic ensures broader visibility and sustained engagement, as in-feed videos enjoy longer life spans and usually greater organic reach.

Once we have collected a range of earned videos, we carefully scrutinize each piece, identifying which content aligns most effectively with the brand’s messaging and objectives. We then obtain listing rights for the most compelling videos, allowing us to repurpose them as paid ads.

How To Turn Your Earned Influence Into Digital Assets

Transforming your earned influencer content into digital assets involves several strategic steps:

• Identify high-performing content: Select influencer posts that resonate strongly with the influencer’s audience and align with the brand’s values and messaging.

• Secure permissions: Obtain the necessary rights from influencers to repurpose their content for paid advertising, ensuring transparency and maintaining trust.

• Learn to let go of control: You must encourage internal teams—marketing, legal and compliance—to embrace the authenticity that makes influencer content powerful. This means relaxing some of the typical requirements in influencer briefs and trusting influencers to create content that genuinely connects with their audience.

• Repurpose content: Adapt the selected influencer content into various digital formats, such as video ads, banner ads or social media promotions, while preserving the original tone and authenticity.

• Amplify reach: Use paid channels to introduce earned influencer content to new audiences, extending its life span and impact far beyond the influencer’s immediate followers.

By embracing authenticity and giving influencers creative freedom, you can effectively turn earned content into valuable digital assets that resonate with a broader audience.

The Future: Unified Content And Influencer Strategies

Influencer marketing is moving toward a unified approach that leverages both earned and paid influence within a strategic content marketing framework. By converting authentic earned content into digital assets for paid ads, brands can harness the full potential of influencer marketing, significantly expanding reach and engagement.

Ultimately, the merging of influencer marketing and content marketing, supported by the strategic use of earned and paid influence, is redefining how brands connect with audiences. The brands that will thrive are those that can seamlessly integrate these approaches, creating content that resonates authentically while delivering measurable business outcomes. The future of influencer marketing is indeed entwined with content marketing—particularly in the smart use of earned influence as a foundational asset for paid advertising.

Feature Image Credit: getty

By Aurelie Sauthier

Aurelie Sauthier, President & Co-Founder of Made in, Canada 1st Influencer Marketing Agency, est. 2012 with a second office in Paris. Read Aurelie Sauthier’s full executive profile here.

Sourced from Forbes

By Alex Brueckmann,

Every year, millions of leadership hours are poured into what companies call “strategy.” Yet months later, those same organizations often find themselves no closer to clarity or competitive edge. The uncomfortable truth: What passes for strategy is actually often nothing more than management theatre. It looks important, it feels productive, but it changes nothing.

In two decades of watching executive teams wrestle with direction, I’ve noticed recurring patterns that lead to strategy failure. They’re seductive because they look like progress. But in reality, they trap organizations in cycles of motion without momentum. Here’s how to spot them and what to do instead.

Planning Replaces Direction

Does your company have an “Annual Strategic Plan” with dozens of initiatives, metrics and milestones? It feels structured. It feels disciplined. It’s also not strategy.

Real strategy doesn’t fit into fiscal years. It answers existential questions: “Where will we play? How will we win? What must we become to do that?” If your “strategy” process starts with budget spreadsheets, you’re managing activity. Planning—as in “who does what by when, and how do we pay for it”—is not direction. Separate the two. Design strategy to clarify direction. Let planning follow, not lead.

Big Goals Replace Coherent Choices

Ambitious goals sound inspiring: “Double our market share.” “Triple our revenue.” “Be the leader in our space.” But without an underlying logic for how that’s achieved, these ambitions are empty calories. They create hype instead of focus. Strategy isn’t about how much you’ll grow but about how you’ll win. The question every leadership team should wrestle with isn’t “How big can we get?” It’s “What position can we own that others can’t easily copy?”

Agility Becomes An Excuse For Drift

In volatile markets, “being agile” has become a mantra. But agility can easily become addiction. Constant pivoting may look dynamic, but it’s often a symptom of strategic drift. A truly strategic organization knows when not to move. It operates from clear principles that define what’s worth responding to and what’s just noise.

Take Nvidia: Before they became a $4 trillion company, they almost went bankrupt in the mid-1990s. Instead of pivoting away from chips, they stayed the course, learned, improved and broke through with GPUs.

Alignment Exists Only On Slides

Ask 10 executives in the same company to describe the strategy, and you’ll often hear 10 different stories. Yet those same leaders proudly declare they’re “aligned.” Misalignment doesn’t always show up as disagreement. Sometimes it hides in language, the subtle differences in what “innovation,” “growth” or “value” mean to different people. Those gaps compound as decisions cascade through the organization. You can’t execute what you can’t articulate.

If your team can’t explain the strategy in plain language, consistently, you’re confusing those around you. Define what you mean in your business when you use certain terms, instead of leaving it to everyone’s interpretation. There is a reason companies like Roche have terminology experts who define key terms. It avoids confusion by making sure they use the appropriate terms in the right situation, ensuring everyone has the same understanding.

Customers Set The Strategy

Being customer-focused sounds noble, and it often is. But it’s not the same as being strategic. Customers can tell you what they want today. They can’t tell you what will create value tomorrow. When leaders over-index on current customer feedback, they risk becoming a mirror of today’s demands instead of an architect of tomorrow’s advantage.

The real art lies in balancing insight and foresight. Listen deeply to your customers, and also scan the horizon: emerging technologies, cultural shifts and regulatory trends that could reshape your playing field. Strategy lives in that intersection between what customers value now and what they’ll need next.

Execution Is Treated As Someone Else’s Job

One of the most persistent myths in strategy is that executives design it and managers execute it. That’s pretty much nonsense and guarantees disappointment. Strategy lives or dies in the daily choices of everyone. It’s in these everyday situations that you recognize whether your ideas were ever viable.

You can’t design strategy at the top and implement it “down there.” Strategy needs to become everyone’s job, every day. Help everyone understand how their daily work needs to evolve and how that supports strategy and success.

Assess the capabilities, structures and systems, and ask where they need to be updated, tweaked or replaced by something new to support everyone in driving the strategy into action and results.

Updating Replaces Rethinking

When a strategy loses relevance, many companies don’t rebuild it. They take what’s already there and update it. A few new initiatives here, a KPI adjustment there, maybe a new buzzword about AI or “transformation.” It’s the corporate equivalent of a coat of paint on a collapsing wall. Refreshing feels responsible. Reinvention feels dangerous. So, many play it safe. Every few years, you need to ask: “If we were starting from scratch today, would we design the same strategy?” Because the answer is most likely no, it’s time for reinvention.

Allow yourself to clean the slate and reimagine your business. Shape a new ambition, and detail it in a vision statement that makes your teams go, “I want to be a part of bringing this to life.” Then make the choices that will get you there. It’s a great opportunity to let go of things that were right in the past but don’t serve you anymore.

The Courage To Lead Strategically

None of these patterns comes from incompetence. They come from good intentions, discipline, ambition, responsiveness, customer care. But together, they create a fog that obscures what strategy actually is: the discipline of making choices, sometimes painful ones, about the future you’re willing to build.

Real strategy forces trade-offs. It demands saying “no” more than “yes.” It replaces wishful goals with coherent choices, not plans and budget numbers. If you find yourself leading a team that’s somehow lost, you’re likely stuck in the loop of false strategy. Breaking that loop starts with reframing what “strategic” really means.

Feature image credit: Getty

By Alex Brueckmann

Alex Brueckmann is the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of “The Strategy Legacy” and CEO of Brueckmann Strategy Consultants Ltd. Read Alex Brueckmann’s full executive profile here. Find Alex Brueckmann on LinkedIn. Visit Alex’s website.

Sourced from Forbes

By Sherin Shibu 

Gen Z is barely using Google as a verb anymore.

Google is the most popular search engine in the world, but its dominance over search ad revenue—and Gen Z’s vernacular—is losing steam.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, Google’s share of the $88.8 billion U.S. search advertising market is expected to fall to the lowest point in over a decade as a diverse set of competitors like Amazon, Perplexity AI, and TikTok deliver alternative search experiences.

Consumers are conducting product searches through Amazon and social media searches through TikTok, with targeted ads creating revenue for each business along the way. Perplexity is expected to infuse its AI search results with ads later this month.

Those rival offerings will push Google’s U.S. search ad market share below 50% next year and bring Amazon’s share up to about 25%, per the WSJ.

Moreover, Bernstein Research shows that Gen Z is barely using the term Google as a verb. Young users are “searching” through social media, Amazon, and ChatGPT; they aren’t “Googling,” Bernstein analyst Mark Shmulik wrote in a September note.

As of last week, Google’s AI Overviews now display ads with relevant products under a “sponsored” banner. According to a Google spokesperson, the ads will only appear under relevant searches.

Example of ads in Google AI overviews. Credit: Google

Even with AI rivals like ChatGPT, Google’s numbers remain strong. Its share of the overall search market has remained at least 90% so far. Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines have less than 4% each of the market.

Google ad revenue also increased from 2022 to 2023, rising from $224.47 billion to $237.86 billion.

By Sherin Shibu 

Sherin Shibu is a business news reporter at Entrepreneur.com. She previously worked for PCMag, Business Insider, The Messenger, and ZDNET as a reporter and copyeditor. Her areas of coverage encompass tech, business, strategy, finance, and even space. She is a Columbia University graduate.

Sourced from Entrepreneur

By Rachel Curry

SearchGPT is already dubbed by some as the “Google killer.”

Arvind Jain, a former Google (GOOGL) engineer and now CEO of the enterprise A.I. search platform Glean, never saw Google’s approximately 90 percent market share in online search as overtly anticompetitive—after all, Google always had a superior search product, Jain said. In recent years, however, innovation seems to have given way to profitability. “The experience was getting worse, especially on mobile devices, where there are just way too many ads on the page,” the former Googler told Observer.

For the first time in many years, competition is ramping up. In July, OpenAI announced SearchGPT, an A.I.-powered search engine that many already dubbed the “Google killer.” Smaller players, such as Perplexity AI, are also gaining momentum in the search space.

“There is more serious competition than ever before,” Ashwini Karandikar, executive vice president of media, technology and data at the American Association of Advertising Agencies, an industry group, told Observer. Karandikar’s prescience is rooted in decades of industry experience, during which she witnessed digital advertising go from just 5 percent of a company’s advertising budget to practically 100 percent.

Technologically, answer engines powered by large language models (LLMs) have the potential to shake up the search and digital advertising markets, but Jain doesn’t think they’re not yet commercially ready. “Personally, as a user, I don’t feel comfortable going to these answer engines,” he said. That’s because most of them don’t provide the source of information from which they generate answers. Some chatbots are starting to cite sources, but this feature is still in the early stages. Ultimately, competitors will have to lean into a hybridized search solution, said Jain, which will combine plain search and plain answers for an optimized user experience.

That need for transparency has roots in the trust gap highlighted by consumer-facing A.I. products. The A.I. trust gap is “the sum of the persistent risks (both real and perceived) associated with A.I.,” Bhaskar Chakravorti, a business professor at Tufts University, wrote in a recent article for the Harvard Business Review. Common concerns around A.I. include deepfakes, hallucinations, data privacy and A.I.’s inherent black-box problem. Last year, Pew Research found that 52 percent of Americans feel more concerned than excited about the increased use of A.I., with people particularly torn about its application for finding accurate information online.

To establish public trust, companies like OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Meta and Amazon are all prioritizing self-regulation. These companies are on a steering committee for a truth-seeking organization called C2PA, or the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity. It’s an “open technical standard providing publishers, creators and consumers the ability to trace the origin of different types of media,” according to the coalition’s website.

Brand recognition will play a major role in trust, something Google simply has more of, said Andrew Frank, an analyst at Gartner. “People trust results because they see that they’re appearing on a search results page that they are familiar with,” he told Observer. “If you go to Perplexity, for example, as an alternative search engine, it has some powerful capabilities, but it doesn’t have that established brand trust yet that makes you feel confident that the results it’s giving you are unbiased and authentic.”

However, as the competitive landscape in search and digital advertising inevitably evolves, the leading position is not set in stone. Google is currently facing multiple antitrust charges over its dominance in the online search market. “Whatever happens with the trials, we’re definitely looking at a situation where marketers, in particular, are going to have to diversify their approach and do a lot more experimentation and testing of new channels, new techniques, new strategies for search and discovery,” said Frank, adding that this push forward is “mostly because of the impact of generative A.I.”

As new competitors enter the arena, monopoly concerns are not entirely assuaged. OpenAI itself is backed by Bing creator Microsoft. Meanwhile, Google is keeping up with A.I. trends with new products like AI Overviews. It’s possible the competitive waters will just get muddied. Nonetheless, innovation is already responding, and a somewhat consolidated market is good, said Frank. “We don’t want to see the same kind of fragmentation that made digital media so difficult to deal with in the early days,” he said.

Feature Image Credit: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images

By Rachel Curry

Sourced from Observer

 

By Kristen Dolan

Over the course of this year, I’ve helped brands navigate seismic industry changes, from Oracle’s departure from the advertising business to Google’s cookie phase-out reversal. At the centre of discussions (besides the obvious, AI) is an increasing focus on the role influencers play across the media mix and customer journey. After engaging in meaningful discussions with the industry’s top marketing leaders, I’m sharing a top 10 list of my favourite questions, along with my perspectives, which have helped to shape media strategies and innovation roadmaps.

Let’s dive in!

10. How is AI transforming influencer marketing?

While AI has been around for quite some time, generative AI (GenAI) has been a recent topic of interest over the last two years. GenAI is a type of AI that generates copy, graphics, audio and videos. The integration of AI technologies, including GenAI, in the influencer marketing landscape is catalysing transformative advancements in creator vetting, communication efficiency and content creation. In other words, it’s a BFD.

By harnessing AI-driven insights, agencies and brands can optimize workflows, strengthen client relationships and navigate regulatory complexities. These are mere examples, but the opportunities are limitless.

9. Will virtual influencers replace traditional influencers?

If the question pertains to the human impact on influence, I find it hard for AI to replace human connection. People follow influencers because they genuinely have built these parasocial relationships, trust what that influencer is saying and trust their recommendations as they would seek their own friend out to do so. The human connection is what drives that authenticity.

While I don’t see that wavering in place of AI, I do see a more collaborative role in that creators can tap into AI tools to help manage their businesses. Operationally, they can save so much time and resources by tapping into AI tools to help automate things like resourcing, invoicing, planning, data/analytics and so much more. From a content perspective, AI can certainly expedite and advance the creation process—I see an early-stage use case here of expanding creativity, not used to directly influence an action/recommendation.

8. How will creator content evolve over the next few years?

Outside of AI collaboration, creator content is becoming more pervasive. I hope to see brands more proactively adapt to a creator and audience-first mindset when developing omnichannel strategies.

7. What are the most innovative ways influencers are using new social media features?

Anecdotally, I really want creator-led programming to have its moment. Humor me…if we are seeing more consistent tune-ins across lives on social, inevitably, that means people are developing the habit of tuning into their favourite creators at a specific time.

In parallel, we’re seeing Netflix test out live content.

If both worlds are successful, creator live content becomes extremely valuable. I can see a world where streaming platforms are picking up creator programming (as they would broadcast programming) and offering creator content as a viewing option.

6. What influencer strategy is most slept on?

From a brand perspective, deeper creator collaborations. Creators, as their own small businesses, are an untapped resource for brands to realize their full ROI potential.

5. Which past social predictions have made an impact so far this year?

Less of a prediction and more of a framework for discerning marketing hype from hyperbole. Essentially, the parameters that need to be met in order for an emerging social platform to truly be noteworthy are: consistent adoption, a positive and value-adding user experience, serving a need and evolving with its user base as those needs change.

Threads userbase hit 200 million monthly active users according to their Q2 earnings. Up 100 million from their initial launch week in July of last year—a platform to monitor and distinguish from hyperbole if the framework elements continue to be met.

4. How can brands leverage creators to streamline the checkout process?

Approaching strategies with a customer-first mindset, understanding the customer journey and the role influencers can play in driving sales on your website or in your store. An important concept is recognizing creators as a standalone media channel. Creator content will become more pervasive as the ROI continues to be justified.

3. What does the future of creator commerce look like?

I don’t look at things as if there’s a definitive endpoint, but I can speak to the general cyclical pattern of ubiquity to consolidation and vice versa. Consumers have so many options, more than ever. Their attention grows more and more fragmented, and the ability to meet them where they are, with relevant messaging and the ability to immediately shop, is business critical but also cumbersome. The next phase in the future will inevitably shift to a version of consolidation, which we’re starting to see a glimpse of via Google’s Anti-Trust ruling and TikTok’s partnering with Amazon for integrated shopping.

2. What examples across the creator economy stand out as ground-breaking applications of AI, and how can businesses tap into that potential?

What I consider ground-breaking isn’t necessarily the splashy consumer-facing side of marketing but the technical infrastructure that fuels consumer insights and strategy. The stronger the first-party data for a brand, the more opportunity there is to eliminate wasted spend and influence more immediate ROI. I look forward to seeing applications of AI that enrich the data process for consumer profiles and strengthen propensity modelling for stronger go-to-market strategies.

1. How should companies be navigating this new wave of digital transformation through AI technology?

Be agile or stay fragile. I encourage everyone to embrace innovation and technology while finding ways to uplevel yourself, your business and your people.

Today is the worst state we’ll experience technology. It only improves from today onward. Those embracing it today are setting themselves up for success in the future.

Feature Image Credit: getty

By Kristen Dolan

Kristen Dolan is SVP of Growth at Influential. Read Kristen Dolan’s full executive profile here.

Sourced from Forbes

By Lindsey Gamble

Facebook announced that it will roll out a new monetization program called Facebook Content Monetization Beta. This program will merge in-stream ads, Ads on Reels, and the Performance Bonus into a single initiative. Creators will be compensated for Reels, longer videos, photos, and text posts based on a performance-based payout model.

Facebook also reported that:

  • It has paid out creators $2 billion in the past year alone, following its expansion from compensating creators for longer videos to other content formats.

  • Payouts for Reels and short-form videos have grown by more than 80 percent.

  • Currently, only one-third of creators who monetize on Facebook do so through more than one Facebook-funded program.

The new program will be available in 2025, but creators can learn more and express their interest in the program here.

Why It Matters: Facebook is simplifying its monetization programs for creators by consolidating what were previously multiple programs, which had varying availability, eligibility requirements, and sign-up processes, under one umbrella. This streamlined approach will make it easier for creators to participate in and earn from Facebook’s monetization opportunities.

Despite paying out billions to creators in the past year—though still much smaller than YouTube’s $70 billion over the last three years—Facebook often doesn’t receive enough recognition for the opportunities it offers on its platform. However, with recent moves to create a more TikTok-like video experience and its push to attract Gen Z, we can expect an uptick in creators investing their time and resources in Facebook.

Feature Image Credit: Facebook / Facebook Content Monetization Beta 

By Lindsey Gamble

Sourced from The Drum

Suzanna Chaplin, CEO at esbconnect, looks at what the company’s partnership with Eyeota means for digital advertisers.

Data privacy is one of the biggest issues facing the digital advertising industry, and rightly so. For too long, advertisers and those who support them have relied far too heavily on third-party cookies that many browsers no longer support, many consumers have opted out of, and which, in any case, are a poor proxy for true consumer intent.

At esbconnect, we decided, many years ago, to take a different approach – one that is completely up front and transparent with consumers about the value exchange involved in sharing their data with us and with our clients.

As a result, we have been able to build an opted-in email database of 17 million UK consumers and 2 million B2B email addresses, with more than 400 attributes, spanning demographic, behavioural and modelled data. That’s everything from age and income to marital status, proximity to specific retail outlets, and a proven history of actively researching certain product categories, amounting to strong purchase intent data, based on the emails they are reading, clicking and transacting on.

It’s one of the largest, scaled addressable data sets in the UK, and it’s compliant with all major data privacy regulations, including GDPRCCPA and COPPA. It’s also completely cookieless, since all our data comes from consumers who have shared it with us, and consented for us to share it with our marketing partners.

Email represents a rich and sometimes overlooked channel to reach consumers. An OptinMonster study found that 58% of people check their email before looking at anything else online each day, while research from Adobe suggests that we spend an average of 6.4 hours each day in our inboxes.

And, as with search and social, email provides powerful behavioural signals when you track actions taken after an email arrives in an individual’s inbox. Lookalike modelling enables brands to use the data to find prospects who share the same attributes as their existing customers. Ready-made vertical segments include travel, auto, retail, home and finance, among others.

But the real power of data comes when it can transcends channels, and that’s what esb’s recently-announced partnership with audience data firm, Eyeota, is all about. The partnership makes esb’s email data available to marketers in any channel, including social, programmatic and offline.

This is the first time this type of intent-powered data, direct from individuals’ inboxes, has been made available, and it’s also the first solution to enable a full omnichannel journey at a one-to-one level, allowing a brand to span a journey across programmatic, social, email and postal. I believe it’s a game-changer for brands looking to harness the power of email data across all their channels – online and off.

It takes the power and proven effectiveness of esb’s email database and sets it free across the wider open web and social, as well as offline channels. We send 50 million emails a month to drive acquisition for over 100 brands, gathering rich intent data on what a consumer engages with and buys. Brands like Clarks, Coach, AA, IcelandAir, Ocado and Tapi have come to rely on the quality of our data for email marketing. Now they, and others, can put it to work wherever they see fit.

About esbconnect

Esbconnect equips brands with the tools and strategies they need to better target and connect with customers. It has a scaled, addressable and rich dataset of 17 millino consumers, with over 440 data points appended, including real-time information on what emails they are opening and clicking on in their inbox. Its Inbox Intelligence provides valuable insights, enabling brands to understand their customers, expand their first party data, and create personalized marketing campaigns across offline and online channels. As a strategic partner, esbconnect helps brands navigate the challenges of a changing digital landscape, unlocking new opportunities for growth and delivering exceptional results. Esbconnect has helped more than 600 brands grow, including the likes of Clarks, Tails and HelloFresh.

Sourced from The Drum

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References to something called “Windows Intelligence” has been spotted in the latest Windows 11 builds.

What you need to know

  • According to a file surfaced on X (formerly Twitter), Microsoft could rebrand its AI-powered features in Windows to Windows Intelligence.
  • The potential Windows Intelligence rebrand is reminiscent of Apple Intelligence.
  • Last year, Microsoft rebranded its AI service from Bing Chat to Copilot.

Following Microsoft’s multi-billion dollar investment in OpenAI, the tech giant ventured into the artificial intelligence landscape face-first, integrating the technology across its tech stack and unveiling Copilot (formerly Bing Chat) in February 2023. Since then, the AI chatbot has undergone critical changes, including Microsoft moving away from the “Bing brand,” integration of advanced features, and more.

Recently, Microsoft shipped a massive update to its Copilot AI, overhauling the service user experience with new features, including Copilot Vision. However, the drastic changes seem to be a miss for many users. Users have taken to social media to express their displeasure with the new update, citing a degraded user experience. Some have blatantly expressed their preference for Copilot’s previous version and even requested Microsoft to introduce a toggle button that would allow them to switch back to it.

Microsoft has seemingly remained silent about the issues highlighted through user feedback. Now, references from the appprivacy.adml file shared on X suggests the company could potentially group Windows 11’s AI-powered features under one umbrella called Windows Intelligence (via TechRadar).

As you may know, Apple unveiled its new AI strategy earlier this year, branding it Apple Intelligence. Microsoft’s potential branding strategy for Windows 11 AI-powered features is oddly reminiscent of Apple’s AI strategy. While details about the possible rebrand are under wraps, it could indicate that Microsoft is doubling down on its AI efforts and looking to place its services under one roof in Windows, including Copilot.

Our sister site, TechRadar, pointed out, that this isn’t the first time Microsoft has used Windows Intelligence. The tech giant has previously used the term while talking about cybersecurity upgrades.

Copilot is going through not so great changes

The Microsoft Copilot app is being displayed on a smartphone (Image credit: Getty Images | NurPhoto)

 

The recent Copilot update has received considerable backlash from users, including Microsoft staffers who have blatantly indicated that it’s “a step backward” and “absolutely ruined” the tool’s experience.

Interestingly, in an interview, Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman recently indicated that Copilot might evolve into more than just a tool and become an AI companion:

“I mean, this is going to become a lasting, meaningful relationship. People are going to have a real friend that gets to know you over time, that learns from you, that is there in your corner as your support.”

RELATED: Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC launch has been a disaster

Multiple users have already depicted some instances of the highlighted while interacting with the chatbot. “It tries to be my friend when I need it to be a tool,” indicated a concerned user. It’ll be interesting to see how Microsoft addresses the issues highlighted concerning Copilot’s degraded user experience and whether it will rebrand its AI-powered features to Windows Intelligence.

Feature Image Credit: Satya Nadella on stage at an event in London talking about Copilot (Image credit: Windows Central)

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Sourced from Window Central