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Natalie is Creative Bloq’s staff writer. With an eye for trending topics and a passion for internet culture, she brings you the latest in art and design news. A recent English Literature graduate, Natalie enjoys covering the lighter side of the news and brings a fresh and fun take to her articles. Outside of work (if she’s not glued to her phone), she loves all things music and enjoys singing sweet folky tunes.
Marketers have reasons to be concerned by the upcoming inbox changes that were announced by Apple on June 10 and Yahoo on June 11. Those changes entail Apple adding tabs to Apple Mail, and both Apple and Yahoo adding AI-generated summaries to emails.
Let’s talk in more detail about each and what the concerns are.
Ten years after Google pioneered tabs, and many years after Microsoft and Yahoo adopted them, Apple has finally followed suit. Expect to see tabs in future versions of Apple Mail. All of the major inbox providers use slightly different tabs from one another. Apple Mail’s four tabs will be Primary, Transactions, Updates and Promotions.
You might be wondering why this is a concern. And regular readers of my CMSWire columns may recall I wrote an article marking the 10-year anniversary of Gmail Tabs, where I concluded by saying that the “Promotions tab isn’t worth fussing about.”
So, what’s changed?
Well, in that same article, I talk about how Gmail has been automatically applying Email Annotations to some commercial emails in the Promotions Tab that don’t include that coding. Essentially, Gmail has been hijacking the code of marketers’ emails to achieve its own goals, which presumably includes making their in-line ads less distinguishable from the emails surrounding them.
Google calls it Automatic Extraction. This year, they’ve become much more aggressive in applying it. The higher frequency of use has also made it evident that Automatic Extraction routinely degrades the email experience crafted by brands, creating disconnects between their subject line and the preview content imposed by Gmail. In some cases, legal questions around misrepresentation and false advertising are being raised, with Gmail occasionally pulling discount amounts from disclaimers at the bottom of emails and promoting them in the preview content, falsely asserting that it’s the featured discount in the email.
I have zero concerns about inbox providers creating Promotions tabs. Neither do I mind them using the Promotions tab as a venue to display ads, even placing them in-line among emails. That’s a reasonable way to generate revenue for their inbox business.
However, putting marketers’ emails in a different tab where the preview content of their emails is changed without their consent in ways that they would never do to personal emails is a serious problem. I’m glad to see Apple follow Google’s lead on tabs, but I hope they won’t follow their lead on changing marketers’ email content.
The other big change that’s coming is the addition of generative AI-powered previews and summaries for both Apple and Yahoo.
In the case of Apple, they’ll be replacing preview text of emails with a generative AI-written preview. All of the examples shown were personal, but presumably this will be applied to commercial emails, too. It’s unclear if this functionality will be on by default, or if it can be turned off by users.
And once you’ve opened an email, Apple will give you the option to have generative AI summarize the email with the tap of the Summarize button.
In what Yahoo Mail is calling “one of the most significant updates to its desktop experience in nearly a decade,” they’ve streamlined their user interface and added generative AI previews and summaries. Both appear to be on by default, and it’s unclear if they can be turned off.
The AI preview is similar to Apple’s, which again replaces the typical preview text that’s pulled from the email’s body content. However, unlike Apple’s AI summary, Yahoo’s appears to be done automatically.
The other difference is that Yahoo’s summary appears as a series of bulleted items, rather than a paragraph-style summary. It will also include proposed actions, tasks, or responses needed, according to Yahoo.
The concern with AI previews is that they undo marketers’ preview text optimization efforts. While it’s true that most personal emails aren’t written by communication experts and therefore have less helpful preview text, that’s not the case with marketing emails.
The concern with AI summaries is similar, especially if they’re applied automatically to marketing emails. While some marketing emails can be long, when that’s the case, it’s almost always because the email is composed of many content blocks about multiple subjects. AI summaries are unlikely to do that justice. Indeed, given how little actual text is in many marketing emails, the summary may largely reword the marketing text, potentially introducing inaccuracies in the process.
Regardless of how good the AI engine summary is, the summary will have two negative effects on marketers:
Email’s not perfect. There are plenty of things that could be better besides the long-standing problem of spam, against which inbox providers have been vigilant fighters. The new functionality they’ve rolled out over the years highlight some of the other things inbox providers think could be better about email.
The challenge is there’s little agreement among the major inbox providers on which issues to prioritize. The result is:
Considering all of the helpful advancements that inbox providers could agree on, it’s unfortunate that what they seem to agree on is that preview text should be overwritten and body copy filtered and summarized by AI — particularly, it appears, if the message is commercial. Put another way, it seems the problem they’re trying to solve is that people are writing the emails.
Chad S. White is the author of four editions of Email Marketing Rules and Head of Research for Oracle Digital Experience Agency, a global full-service digital marketing agency inside of Oracle. Connect with Chad S. White: Twitter
Giving attribution to the marketing channels that bring in callers is a must for maximizing ROI. Call tracking software is designed to identify where callers come from, so you know which marketing strategies are working and which ones aren’t. By spending a little upfront, you can drive more revenue in the long run.
Call tracking platforms come in all flavors, from basic and easy to advanced and powerful. Here’s a look at a few of the areas that make my top picks different from one another.
| Best for | Starting price | Free trial | Keyword spotting | IVR | Integrations | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CallRail | Best overall | $45 per month | 14 days | Some plans | Add-on | 33 + Zapier |
| Invoca | Multi-touch attribution | Custom quote | Demo only | Add-on | Some plans | Add-on |
| WhatConverts | E-commerce | $30 per month | 14 days | All plans | Some plans | 1,000+ |
| CallTrackingMetrics | Call center call tracking | $65 per month | 30 days | Some plans | All plans | 46 + Make and Zapier |
| Infinity | Omnichannel tracking | $199 per month | Demo only | Top tier only | Add-on | 27 |
When it comes to call tracking software that truly has it all, it’s hard to beat CallRail. It offers streamlined call attribution, so you know exactly how callers find you and you can quickly compare channels side-by-side to see which campaigns have the most impact.
CallRail helps you track every touchpoint in the marketing funnel. With visitor-level tracking, you can see what happens before someone calls your business from a deeper, big-picture perspective. And with advanced analytics, you can ensure your decisions are always fueled by 100% objective data. This, along with IVR analytics, is a potent combination. Despite its power, CallRail is one of the more affordable options on my list.
All plans include five free local numbers, 250 local minutes per month, and 100 text messages per month. Plans with form tracking include 1,000 submissions and those with transcriptions include 7,500 complimentary minutes.
Each additional local number is $3, extra local minutes are $0.05 each, toll-free numbers are $5, toll-free minutes are $0.08, and extra texts are $0.016 each.
| Pros | Cons |
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While most call tracking tools offer multi-touch attribution, it’s Invoca’s bread and butter. Understanding every touch point is key to a higher volume of quality leads and getting the most of your marketing budget — working with a provider that specializes in it gives you all of the top-tier tools you need to do it well.
I’m impressed with how Invoca uses advanced AI to instantly measure the quality of each lead. Using Signal AI, which features cutting-edge voice biometric technology, you can distinguish casual callers from those with a strong likelihood of buying. From there, you can decide who to prioritize. I also like that it makes it easy to recover lost sales opportunities. Say someone has serious intent to buy calls but you don’t answer — Invoca will notify a manager so you can follow up right away.
Invoca offers custom pricing. For brands and agencies, there are three plans:
Each plan also comes with different features. As you go up to higher tiers, you get more of the add-ons at no extra cost. There are also pay-per-call and affiliate marketing plans for performance marketers, including:
You can enhance either plan with AI, QA, customer journey, and integration add-ons.
| Pros | Cons |
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WhatConverts works well for call, chat, text, and form tracking. It also integrates with numerous e-commerce platforms, including WooCommerce, Shopify, Squarespace, and BigCommerce. That, paired with its ability to append marketing data to orders for full context into the customer journey, makes it a great choice for e-commerce stores.
It goes beyond call tracking, covering additional channels that matter for e-commerce. On top of that, its local numbers are cheaper than others, it includes unlimited users on every plan, and it comes with complete lead management capabilities no matter what you pay.
Every plan includes $30 of free usage credits and a 14-day free trial to see if it’s right for you. Every plan offers what you need to track calls for a single business, which is great. The higher you go, the more channels you can track and the more intelligence tools you get.
There are also dedicated plans for agencies with unlimited accounts so you can use them to track calls for as many clients as needed. These plans include:
Each tier covers call, form, text, and chat tracking. Local numbers for agencies are the most affordable I’ve seen, at just $1.75 each. However, white labelling the solution is an additional $50 per month.
| Pros | Cons |
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CallTrackingMetrics is great for lead management and advanced call routing capabilities, making it a solid choice for contact centres. Not only can you seamlessly assign attribution to each call, you can simultaneously qualify leads and close more deals. Plus, there are built-in coaching features that allow you to maintain call detail records so you can review calls and provide agents with scores to quantify their performance.
I was initially put off by the high price tag but came around once I realized how powerful CallTrackingMetrics can be for the right teams. It can help improve sales efficiency with lead qualification capabilities, a smart dialler, and real-time monitoring, which aren’t usually available with simpler call tracking tools.
Every plan includes unlimited users, manual call scoring and tagging, call and text attribution, IVR routing, recording, and basic integrations. As you upgrade to higher tiers, you’ll get AI capabilities, web form tracking, white label options, lead triggers, auto dialling, and dynamic call scripts.
It’s one of the most advanced options on the list, which is reflected in its higher price tag.
| Pros | Cons |
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Most call tracking software platforms allow you to track multiple channels. But if you truly want a holistic overview of where your callers are coming from and how the pieces fit together, it’s hard to beat Infinity. Your website, search engines, videos, landing pages, webinars, emails, and even e-books can all be easily tracked with this platform. While it may not have the same volume of features as other call tracking software, the ability to track virtually every channel you can imagine is what makes it shine.
With it, you’ll be able to see what led to a conversion. But it goes further than that — you can also see what happened before that as well as what happened after. Say a caller heard about you through one of your PPC campaigns, clicked on your landing page, visited your website for more information, and went to your contact page to call you. After the call, they went back to your website to do more digging. You’ll know exactly where they went and what they saw every step of the way.
Rather than charging per minute like other call tracking tools, you can have longer conversations without paying the price since you pay per call. Infinity offers targeted plans for marketers, sales, contact centres, customer service, and compliance teams.
Each one is optimized around the use case, with different features being available at different tiers.
| Pros | Cons |
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I recommend working backwards — start with understanding your customer journeys and what channels they use to find your business. This should include every channel you’re currently using, from e-books and your website to affiliate marketing and PPC campaigns.
From there, you can immediately narrow your choices based on the attribution channels you need to keep track of. At this stage, I also suggest taking an honest look at what you can afford.
Can you realistically raise the cost of customer acquisition and still make a profit? If so, how much? This is an important consideration when defining your budget.
Once you’ve narrowed it down to a few providers, you should schedule demos and free trials to see how they work and make sure they can do everything you need. At this point, it’s mostly a personal preference as to which interface you prefer.
The main reason I chose these particular brands is because they all provide accurate call attribution across a wide range of channels. While the features and pricing vary, they all deliver real value.
More specifically, I looked at:
By Hayden Field
OpenAI announced it will launch a new AI model, “GPT-4o mini,” the artificial intelligence startup’s latest effort to expand use of its popular chatbot, on Thursday.
The company called the new release “the most capable and cost-efficient small model available today,” and it plans to integrate image, video and audio into it later.
The mini AI model is an offshoot of GPT-4o, OpenAI’s fastest and most powerful model, which it launched in May during a livestreamed event with executives. The “o” in GPT-4o stands for omni, and GPT-4o has improved audio, video and text capabilities, with the ability to handle 50 different languages at improved speed and quality, according to the company.
OpenAI, backed by Microsoft, has been valued at more than $80 billion by investors. The company, founded in 2015, is under pressure to stay on top of the generative AI market while finding ways to make money as it spends massive sums on processors and infrastructure to build and train its models.
The mini AI model announced Thursday is part of OpenAI’s push to be at the forefront of “multimodality,” or the ability to offer a wide range of types of AI-generated media, like text, images, audio and video, inside one tool: ChatGPT.
Last year, OpenAI Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap told CNBC: “The world is multimodal. If you think about the way we as humans process the world and engage with the world, we see things, we hear things, we say things — the world is much bigger than text. So to us, it always felt incomplete for text and code to be the single modalities, the single interfaces that we could have to how powerful these models are and what they can do.”
GPT-4o mini will be available on Thursday to free users of ChatGPT, along with ChatGPT Plus and Team subscribers, and it will be available to ChatGPT Enterprise users next week, the company said in a press release.
Feature Image Credit: Jason Redmond | AFP | Getty Images
By Brian Heater
After months of speculation, Apple Intelligence took centre stage at WWDC 2024 in June. The platform was announced in the wake of a torrent of generative AI news from companies like Google and Open AI, causing concern that the famously tight-lipped tech giant had missed the boat on the latest tech craze.
Contrary to such speculation, however, Apple had a team in place, working on what proved to be a very Apple approach to artificial intelligence. There was still pizzazz amid the demos — Apple always loves to put on a show — but Apple Intelligence is ultimately a very pragmatic take on the category.
Apple Intelligence (yes, AI for short) isn’t a standalone feature. Rather, it’s about integrating into existing offerings. While it is a branding exercise in a very real sense, the large language model (LLM) driven technology will operate behind the scenes. As far as the consumer is concerned, the technology will mostly present itself in the form of new features for existing apps.
Cupertino marketing executives have branded Apple Intelligence: “AI for the rest of us.” The platform is designed to leverage the things that generative AI already does well, like text and image generation, to improve upon existing features. Like other platforms including ChatGPT and Google Gemini, Apple Intelligence was trained on large information models. These systems use deep learning to form connections, whether it be text, images, video or music.
The text offering, powered by LLM, presents itself as Writing Tools. The feature is available across various Apple apps, including Mail, Messages, Pages and Notifications. It can be used to provide summaries of long text, proofread and even write messages for you, using content and tone prompts.
Image generation has been integrated as well, in similar fashion — albeit a bit less seamlessly. Users can prompt Apple Intelligence to generate custom emojis (Genmojis) in an Apple house style. Image Playground, meanwhile, is a standalone image generation app that utilizes prompts to create visual content than can be used in Messages, Keynote or shared via social media.
Apple Intelligence also marks a long-awaited face-lift for Siri. The smart assistant was early to the game, but has mostly been neglected for the past several years. Siri is integrated much more deeply into Apple’s operating systems; for instance, instead of the familiar icon, users will see a glowing light around the edge of their iPhone screen when it’s doing its thing.
More important, new Siri works across apps. That means, for example, that you can ask Siri to edit a photo and then insert it directly into a text message. It’s a frictionless experience the assistant had previously lacked. Onscreen awareness means Siri uses the context of the content you’re currently engaged with to provide an appropriate answer.
It’s too early to speak to the efficacy of any of the above features. While the latest batch of Apple operating systems hit public beta this week, Apple Intelligence isn’t yet fully baked. It’s clear, however, that Apple was pressed to talk it up in June both to bely concern that it didn’t have a generative AI plan and to offer a head start for developers.
While we saw demos at WWDC, we’re going to have to wait until the fall to get our hands on a beta of Apple Intelligence. As it happens, fall is also when the public versions of iOS/iPadOS 18 and Mac Sequoia will hit the App Store. The offering will be free to use, so long as you have one of the following pieces of hardware:
Notably, only the Pro versions of the iPhone 15 are getting access, owing to shortcomings on the standard model’s chipset. Presumably, however, the whole iPhone 16 line will be able to run Apple Intelligence when it arrives.
Apple has taken a small-model, bespoke approach to training. Rather than relying on the kind of kitchen sink approach that fuels platforms like GPT and Gemini, the company has compiled datasets in-house for specific tasks like, say, composing an email. The biggest benefit of this approach is that many of these tasks become far less resource intensive and can be performed on-device.
That doesn’t apply to everything, however. More complex queries will utilize the new Private Cloud Compute offering. The company now operates remote servers running on Apple Silicon, which it claims allows it to offer the same level of privacy as its consumer devices. Whether an action is being performed locally or via the cloud will be invisible to the user, unless their device is offline, at which point remote queries will toss up an error.
A lot was made about Apple’s pending partnership with OpenAI ahead of WWDC. Ultimately, however, it turned out that the deal was less about powering Apple Intelligence and more about offering an alternative platform for those things it’s not really built for. It’s a tacit acknowledgement that building a small-model system has its limitation.
Apple Intelligence is free. So, too, is access to ChatGPT. However, those with paid accounts to the latter will have access to premium features free users don’t. This will, presumably, be a big driver to the already thriving generative AI platform.
We know for sure that Apple plans to partner with additional generative AI services. The company all but said that Google Gemini is next on that list.
Feature Image Credits: Apple
By Emma Roth
Instagram will let a select group of researchers access its data to study how the platform affects the mental health of teens and young adults. The pilot program, launched in partnership with the Center for Open Science (COS), could produce independent studies that offer insight into the relationship between social media and a teen’s well-being.
Researchers will gain access to Instagram data for up to six months, which may include information on how many accounts a teen follows, how much they use Instagram, their account settings, and more. However, Meta notes it won’t provide access to a user’s demographic information, nor will it include the contents of their posts, comments, or messages.
Through the program, first reported by The Atlantic, COS will choose up to seven research proposals in different areas related to the mental health of teens. (Meta will not be involved in the process.) Researchers must also recruit the teen participants and get their parents’ permission. COS says the study of data directly from Instagram could help “contribute to understanding of well-being when combined with other sources of data,” such as surveys and other types of studies.
“Parents, policymakers, academics and technology companies are grappling with how best to support young people as they navigate online spaces, but we need more data to understand the full picture,” Curtiss Cobb, Meta’s vice president of research, said in a statement.
Instagram’s effect on the mental health of teens has been in the spotlight for a while now. In 2021, Facebook whistle-blower Frances Haugen came forward with a trove of leaked documents, including internal research that suggested “teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression.” Scientists later called on Meta to make its mental health research more accessible.
Instagram has since rolled out features intended to protect kids on the app, but concerns about Instagram — and other online platforms — remain, leading to a deluge of child safety bills and age verification laws across the US.
Feature Image Credit: Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
A news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO.
By Ben Schoon
Google Maps, like Waze, supports user-based reports of incidents such as crashes, road conditions, and police speed traps, and support for that functionality is finally showing up on CarPlay.
Incident reporting first launched in Google Maps on Android and iOS in early 2019. A button was added to the navigation UI which allowed users to report on traffic jams, accidents, and police speed traps. Those reports would then appear for drivers along the same route. But, if you were using Android Auto or CarPlay, Google Maps wouldn’t let you submit reports, rather only showing incidents reported by other drivers.
But it seems that’s finally changing.
Google Maps for CarPlay has quietly rolled out support (seemingly server-side) for incident reporting. The rollout was first noticed by users in the r/CarPlay subreddit and highlighted by TechIssuesToday. A triangle button (meant to look like a hazard sign) alongside other controls opens up a reporting interface with options to report several different types of roadside incidents. These include:
This all works similarly to Waze, which has supported even better incident reporting through its app for years now.
The new update is rolling out, but doesn’t seem to be available to all users just yet. Let us know in the comments below whether or not you’re seeing the option.
Sadly, though, the same does not appear to be available in Android Auto just yet.
We’ve been calling on Google to add this functionality to Android Auto for several years now. Most recently, we pointed out that incident reporting on Google Maps will become increasingly useless as a result of car-display platforms (Android Auto and CarPlay) not supporting the functionality as more and more users shift from using their phones for navigation versus their car’s display.
As to why this is rolling out on CarPlay and not Android Auto, your guess is as good as ours. Recently, Google Maps for CarPlay also added support for showing a live speedometer based on the GPS signal, something else that the Android Auto version lacks.
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By Kris Nagel
Each quarter, my company Sift produces an index report to better understand the latest online fraud trends, including how businesses and consumers are affected, emerging fraud tactics, and how fraud impacts consumer behaviour when making purchases online. For the past two quarters, we’ve seen a surprising generational divide emerge: Gen Z— born between 1997 and 2012—expresses more willingness than any other generation to commit digital fraud.
In Q4 2023, 42% of Gen Zers admitted a willingness to engage in first-party fraud, where they dispute a purchase with their payment provider despite the purchase being legitimate. This was significantly higher than any other generation—the next highest was millennials, with only 22% admitting to engaging in first-party fraud. This quarter, we discovered that 33% of Gen Z respondents either know someone who has participated in payment fraud or have done so themselves. Again, these rates are much higher than other generations.
This data might seem sensational, but if we explore it more deeply, it’s very telling. Academics have a theory called the “fraud triangle,” which argues that people are more inclined to commit fraud if they have incentive, rationalization, and opportunity.
Gen Z has a number of unfortunate economic factors to feel anxious about. A survey from Intuit found that 73% of Zoomers feel that the current economic environment has made it more challenging to save money. They’re struggling with increased housing costs, student loan debt, and rising prices on everyday purchases like groceries, all while wages have stagnated for workers across many income levels.
These factors snowball into a financially stressful situation that makes it more challenging to afford day-to-day necessities. Unsurprisingly, more economic anxiety can inspire people to look for tactics to stretch every dollar. For most, this behaviour is innocuous: clipping coupons, switching from name-brand to generic items, or shopping second-hand. In fact, Gen Z is also the most likely to shop for second-hand items online, with 42% of this generation purchasing a resale item in the past year.
But facing the wrong set of circumstances, some people will turn to stolen payment methods or chargebacks to get more with less. In these situations, consumers may rationalize fraudulent behaviour by convincing themselves that their actions are necessary or justified given the economic environment. They may view their actions as a temporary solution, or even as a moral grey area with few consequences to anyone.
Gen Z may see large corporations as a cause for these broader economic challenges, making them less likely to view stealing from them as immoral. They may see this behaviour as a victimless crime, as the companies they are transacting with are often industry behemoths.
They also have less loyalty to legacy brands compared to earlier generations. Name recognition alone is not enough to compel Gen Zers to make a purchase. Increasingly, they are looking for “dupes” as a way to save money, prioritizing cheaper goods and services over premium brands. This spans all types of purchases, from clothing and accessories to beauty and personal care products. They’re also more willing to try new brands and are less swayed by established names and celebrity endorsements.
This mentality extends beyond the businesses they buy from. Gen Zers also prioritize spending flexibility and are more drawn to monthly subscriptions or sharing services that allow access without the commitment of ownership, from car-sharing to video streaming to product subscriptions.
With that desire for unlimited access to goods and services, comes a natural drive to maintain that access, which could make shoppers more inclined to turn to nefarious means to do so. The logic is that a company will most likely notice if you’re stealing a car or TV—but the risk is far less likely with a $6.99 monthly subscription.
Gen Z is more heavily influenced by social media and spends more time online than any other generation, allowing online trends to dictate what they buy and how they get their news.
Their time on social media also exposes them to more fraud. Harkening back to iconic online grifters like Anna Delvey and Fyre Fest, there’s a newer category of influencers that’s promoting more outright fraud, selling step-by-step guides that detail how to hack into accounts or make purchases with stolen payment methods. Sift data finds that 34% of Gen Zers have seen offers to take part in online fraud, compared to only 9% of baby boomers. That exposure to social media content is another key reason why Gen Z is more likely to commit fraud—and highlights the deep influence of social media on consumer behaviours.
This generation’s unique challenges and perspectives create the need for a nuanced approach from businesses, one that addresses their economic anxieties, adapts to their consumer habits, and engages with them where they are online.
Some proven approaches include:
The willingness of Gen Z to engage in online fraud is a reflection of the complex interplay of economic pressures, changing consumer behaviours, and the influence of social media. This trend, while having a real business impact, stems from a place of financial stress, a desire for affordability, and a distinct approach to brand loyalty and consumption.
It’s essential to view these findings and recommendations not as an indictment of a generation but as a window into a group that is increasing its purchasing power, even as it faces more economic hurdles.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
Whether you’re putting thought behind what you create online or only posting here and there when inspiration strikes, everything you do is putting a brick onto the foundation of your brand. So why not be intentional about it?
Many executives feel that they shouldn’t build a brand around themselves and instead focus on what they can do to help boost the company or organization they work for. But this misses how the consumers are viewing business today:
• 82% of people trust companies more when senior executives are active on social media
• 77% are more likely to purchase from businesses with digitally-engaged CEOs
In other words, if you aren’t trying to lead through your executive brand, you’re potentially holding your business back.
And if you’re in the market to move to a new opportunity, you can bet that stakeholders and board members will be looking to see how you’re representing yourself online when choosing their next leader.
So how can you start getting strategic with your executive brand? The recipe is unique to each leader and often requires you to consider your past experience, future aspirations and current audience.
1. Your Accomplishments: What have you accomplished up to this point that gives you a particular edge in your industry?
2. Your Aspirations: Where do you see yourself in the future? What kind of leader do you want to become?
3. Your Audience: Who are the key stakeholders you need to engage with? Are they potential employers, investors or customers?
These three pillars can help you craft authentic messaging around your executive brand that resonates with those you wish to influence. They can also act as a filter that allows only the opportunities you want to pursue to reach you.
Now that you have the philosophical down, it’s time to get creative. Here are the three areas you should lean into as you craft your executive brand.
Your résumé is often the first formal introduction to your executive brand. It’s not just a list of jobs; it’s a strategic document that tells your leadership story.
1. Executive Summary: Craft a powerful opening statement that encapsulates your brand. Highlight your unique value proposition (yes, you have one!) and set the tone for the rest of the résumé.
2. Achievement-Focused Content: Instead of listing job duties, showcase specific outcomes from those duties that demonstrate your leadership impact. Use metrics to add credibility to each.
3. Leadership Competencies: You’re the expert, so showcase it! Highlight key executive skills you’ve excelled in, like strategic planning, change management and team development.
4. Industry Expertise: Demonstrate your deep understanding of your sector. Include any relevant thought leadership activities, speaking engagements or publications—and don’t be afraid to mention that you’re available for more.
Remember, your résumé should be a living document, evolving as your career progresses and your brand develops. Think of it as a garden you’re tending to, not a concrete slab (or a tombstone!).
LinkedIn is your digital handshake. It’s where your executive brand comes to life in the professional world—and even if you don’t think it matters, those with the keys to future opportunities do! (Ten million C-suite execs are active on LinkedIn!)
1. Professional Photo And Banner: Use a high-quality, professional headshot and a banner image that reflects your industry or personal brand.
2. Compelling Headline: Go beyond your job title. Use this space to succinctly communicate your value proposition.
3. Engaging ‘About’ Section: Tell your professional story. What drives you? What unique perspective do you bring to your industry?
4. Featured Section: Showcase your thought leadership through articles, presentations or media appearances.
5. Activity And Engagement: Regularly share insights, comment on industry trends and engage with your network. Remember, consistency is key to building your online presence.
6. Recommendations: Cultivate meaningful recommendations that speak to your leadership qualities and impact. Don’t be afraid to reach out and collect these—they’re like buried diamonds.
Your leadership narrative is the thread that ties all elements of your executive brand together. It’s the story that makes you memorable and relatable—connecting your impact in the industry and the passion and purpose behind your work.
Here’s how you can start building it:
1. Identify Your ‘Why’: What motivates you as a leader? What values drive your decisions? What’s your ultimate purpose for getting up each day?
2. Define Your Leadership Style: Are you a transformational leader? A servant leader? Articulate what makes your approach unique and sprinkle in examples of it in action.
3. Highlight Pivotal Moments: What experiences shaped your leadership journey? These could be challenges overcome, lessons learned or key decisions made.
4. Future Vision: Where do you see yourself and your industry heading? Sharing your vision positions you as a forward-thinking leader.
5. Authenticity Is Key: While crafting your narrative, ensure it remains true to who you are. Authenticity resonates and builds trust.
Don’t wait for opportunities to come to you. Start today by implementing these strategies so doors can open, connections can deepen and your influence can expand.
Your unique voice and vision have the power to inspire change and drive success—and the business world is ready for your story. Are you ready to tell it?
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By Nikola Baldikov Edited by Chelsea Brown
Having been in the search engine optimization (SEO) game for nearly a decade, I am often asked what trends I foresee could drive the success of optimization strategies for websites. One thing I can say is that trends are always evolving and that not all trends are equally relevant.
However, a few of my top picks for the current year are covered in more detail below. I can’t overstate the importance of staying up-to-date with SEO industry trends. Doing so is a sure-fire way to stay relevant, successful and competitive online.
So, without further ado, let me present my top SEO trend picks for 2024 to help you up your game and ensure you get the most out of your SEO efforts.
AI and ML can be considered two parts of the same coin. They both use large structured, semi-structured and unstructured datasets to help us SEO experts carry out our work with maximum effectiveness and efficiency.
While you probably already know what AI and ML are and what they can do, it’s important to understand that using these tools and technologies is becoming an indispensable part of an SEO specialist’s toolkit.
How can AI and ML be leveraged to give you powerful results for optimizing your web presence? There are many paths you can take. However, you can use these technologies to “pick the AI’s brain” and get assistance with aspects such as content generation (think meta titles and descriptions) as well as keyword research.
But — as the cliché goes — that’s not all. AI SEO tools can also help with voice search (for more on this, see below), hyper-personalization, mobile optimization, offering headline and title suggestions, analysing data, identifying trends, generating ideas and article outlines and a whole lot more.
One thing we can all agree on is that people are busy. Less time for doing small tasks means looking for solutions to help speed up processes. Enter voice search in the mix. Voice search is a relatively simple concept but can be hard to pull off. It’s when a person uses a smart device and instead of typing in their search query, they speak directly to the smart assistant and ask it for the results. It’s also about SEO experts making this happen.
While the concept may be quite straightforward, it does require some adaptation. For example, when people speak as opposed to type, they tend to use more natural language and long-tail keywords when submitting their queries.
So, to ensure your website or online content caters to these searches, you need to ensure that you:
And when you incorporate NLP into the mix, which uses speech-to-text parameters, you’re much more likely to cater to your audience, yielding faster and more accurate results.
Apart from people being busy, they also tend to take their mobile devices with them wherever they go. It’s not uncommon for people to have their smartphones next to them as they sleep, not to mention bringing them to meetings, lunches, work, gyms, social events and everything in between. What does this have to do with SEO?
The answer is clear-cut: With people using their smartphones for so many different functions and keeping them close at almost all times, mobile searches are becoming a critical part of SEO specialists’ efforts to keep up with the changing times.
Having your website indexed for mobile search results will mean lower bounce rates, greater customer engagement and satisfaction as well as higher levels of loyalty and trust in your brand as you give them ease, convenience and, of course, the chance to convert them into paying customers.
All this happens with the help of mobile-first indexing and responsive design, which is the ability and approach of adapting your website or online content to different platforms, devices, screen sizes, audience environments, layouts and orientations — and focusing on different user behaviours as you aim to cater to a wider market.
The final trend that I think bears emphasizing is the role of storytelling in content marketing. Whether it’s how your business got started or how your business mission came to be developed, there are so many ways to create compelling content that entices and engages as opposed to sounding sterile and conventional.
For this purpose, you need to consider the right storytelling techniques when creating content. These techniques may range from defining the hero, making a false start, foreshadowing, suspense, getting personal and many more. One thing that they all have in common is that you can use them to weave a story around your brand to draw your readers in and captivate them.
There are many ways to get your audience’s attention online. But the trick is to keep it. For this reason, you need to up your SEO game in 2024 by following the trends I mentioned above and implementing them in your SEO strategy.
Unlike fashion, where trends come and go, trends in SEO are a sound investment and preparation for the future of online searches. If you’re able to master them, you’ll remain at the top of your game, helping your business get to the very top.
Entrepreneur Leadership Network® Contributor. CEO at InBound Blogging. Nikola Baldikov is an entrepreneur and SEO expert. With a background in accounting, he founded a successful online business selling t-shirts. Now, as the founder of InBound Blogging, he helps individuals establish successful blogs and achieve financial independence.
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