The AI Revolution isn’t just about creating new tools – it’s about transforming how we learn, understand, and interact with information. And that’s exactly why NotebookLM has become the darling of the AI research community. As someone who’s spent decades observing how technology reshapes human behavior, it’s been fun for me to experiment with this new application.

Here’s what’s really going on: We’re drowning in information. Between podcasts, blog posts, and the endless stream of developments on social media, staying current is like drinking from a firehose. NotebookLM isn’t just another note-taking app – it’s an AI-powered research companion that actually understands context and helps connect the dots.

It’s as close to getting a brain extension as you’ll see (at least for now!).

What makes NotebookLM different is its ability to act as both a librarian and a study buddy. When you’re deep in research mode, it doesn’t just store your notes – it actively helps you understand them. It can summarize complex papers, explain difficult concepts, and even highlight connections between different pieces of research that you might have missed. This is game-changing for anyone navigating the complex world of AI development.

But there’s something even more profound happening here. In all my years of studying digital transformation, I’ve noticed that the tools that truly stick are the ones that feel natural – that work the way our brains work. NotebookLM gets this right. It’s not trying to force users into a rigid system. Instead, it adapts to your thinking style, helping you build knowledge in a way that feels organic and intuitive.

NotebookLM — But wait, there’s more!

A few months ago, NotebookLM users discovered they could use the voice mode to command the app to have a discussion with itself, something similar to a podcast episode. A few people have even produced AI-fueled podcasts with synthetic hosts!

While I have no plans to do this with The Marketing Companion, I did turn to NotebookLM to help me in a pinch this week. My podcast is now in its thirteenth year, and remarkably, I’ve never missed an episode. But this week was close!

My human co-host became too sick to record, and out of time, I turned to NotebookLM for help. The new episode provides extraordinary value in two ways: It’s a mesmerizing demonstration of AI voice capabilities. But what’s really cool is that I uploaded my upcoming new book “Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI World” and asked the “hosts” to review the book.

The result was more than I expected, and I think you’ll love this mind-bending podcast episode. If you haven’t experienced NotebookLM in action, this will get your head spinning. Ready? All you have to do is click here:

Click here to enjoy Marketing Companion Episode 304

Please support our sponsor, who brings you this amazing episode.

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This episode is brought to you by Brevo (formerly Sendinblue). Brevo gives you the tools to attract, engage, and nurture customer relationships.

Now any business can build automated customer experiences, email marketing workflows, and landing pages that guide your customer to your main message. We are here to support businesses successfully navigating their digital presence in order to strengthen their customer relationships.

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I’ve been a faculty member at several different universities since 2009 and have lectured far longer than that. I care about these institutions. They’re part of the American heritage, and in many cases, they’re a gift to the world. But we live in fast-changing times, and universities do not change fast. I’m worried about our colleges. How do we reimagine universities in the Era of AI?

I have some ideas about this, and if you’re currently associated with a college, you will hate them.

To begin with, my thesis is that in the AI Era, universities will fail (and are already failing) to prepare students for many careers. Change isn’t just knocking; it’s kicking down the door, raiding your fridge, and redecorating your living room. There has to be a radical reimagining of the university education that matches the radical disruption of our times.

First, let’s get a few things off the table. If a student attends college for the social aspects or to spend a few years maturing, today’s university system is fine. If a student attends for a purely academic pursuit without any thought of employment, they will thrive in the system we have today.

But I assume most students attend college to launch a career. And that’s where the problems begin.

I’ll break down the problems one by one before offering some solutions.

Organization

I’ve talked to many leading authorities in the tech space — people right in the middle of AI development in Silicon Valley. And I’ve asked them, “How would you prepare young people for a career with the amount of disruption occurring?” Without exception, the answer is, “I don’t know.”

This presents an existential problem because universities are generally organized by career choice: engineering, teaching, art, journalism, etc. But if nobody knows what future careers look like, how can you organize based on jobs that won’t exist as they do today? Except forestry. That might be safe for awhile. But you get my point. Many job categories are rapidly evolving and fluid right now (especially marketing).

The future of education isn’t about preparing for a specific job. It’s about preparing for anything and everything. It’s about teaching students to surf the waves of change rather than trying to build sandcastles on a beach that’s shifting before our eyes.

Speed

A university professor friend of mine recently lamented that it has taken two years to get a new class approved. The glacial pace of change at universities is legendary and … stupid. The bureaucratic lunacy of universities is so well-known that I don’t have to explain further why this culture is a death sentence in an AI world.

Economics

Universities are proud of their park-like campuses and ancient limestone buildings bolted to the center of the earth. While taking selfies in front of Old Main might enchant the alumni, the fact is, you can get a superior education today without that legacy overhead.

If you had to bet on disruptive innovation coming from somebody in a co-working space versus a person who has to spend part of their time fundraising for the Psychology Building renovation … well, it’s not even a race.

The economics for students is even worse. The average four-year education in the U.S. is $160,000 (tuition only). Why does every major need to be completed in four years? Well, somebody has to pay for those limestone buildings. If you step back and look at it, it’s a ridiculous model. No matter the major or career aspiration, it’s four years. Huh?

Any new vision for universities must include significant cost and time reductions enabled by technology.

Faculty

The purpose of the university faculty has been to dispense information. However, universities are no longer the gatekeepers of information. When information is free and abundant, colleges have to reinvent themselves in the context of a new job to be done — eternal relevance. This is a radical idea, but in my estimation, it is the key to the future of colleges.

And the tenure system … don’t get me started. Let’s just say there is almost no incentive for tenured faculty to change and stay current. The stories of lazy, irrelevant faculty I could tell you are shocking, but I won’t embarrass anyone.

At this point, I think all of my university friends could use a photo of a puppy.

No need to thank me. Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Solutions

I’ve covered some of the problems facing a university in a short and simple way because this is a short and simple blog post. I recognize there are many nuances, layers, and complexities that I’m blowing right past. However, not many people care about those, especially young people preparing for a career … in something less than four years, please.

My advice to universities is to start over. There is just no way your Reinvention Committee will twist your bureaucracy into something functional. Take that giant endowment fund and create an entirely new form of education that is fluid enough to meet the needs of today’s teens.

Education in the past assumed there is a logical endpoint. Once you learned A, B, and C, you had enough under your belt to be an engineer, to be an accountant, or a journalist. But today, there is no endpoint. The endpoint keeps moving. What was true for a career yesterday may not be true today. Education needs to be a journey of lifetime learning. So we need something radically new.

No more degrees

Here is my vision: Instead of enrolling in college, students subscribe to one. Students would enter a lifetime learning program accredited by the university of their choice. The program would be designed to get students into the workforce and keep them there through learning modules that adapt to changing times.

The subscription price should be very affordable. However, over a student’s career in the workplace, the financial return to the university would far exceed $160,000 because the relationship with the student would last decades.

Each student would need to pass a battery of tests to ensure they’re ready to join a learning cohort. Some might start with remedial work to get them on the right track. I’ve seen too many university marketing students who can’t write a coherent sentence. Sorry. Fix that first.

Instead of degrees, students would earn accreditation on a topic, sort of like earning a series of merit badges. For example, it would mean much more to a marketing employer to see that a student earned accreditation in digital media production from a university, rather than just knowing they received an A in French and a C in geology during their sophomore year.

No more curriculum

The idea of a standard curriculum that changes every few years, littered with nonsensical, soul-stealing electives, is pathetic. This anachronistic system was created when a gentleman needed a well-rounded education in the classics. And I do mean gentleman.

Instead, my view is that a curriculum committee would create new learning modules every year, or even every few months, depending on the major. The major role of university employees would be overseeing the design of a continuous and ever-changing learning experience.

And by the way, we need a learning path that addresses both the hard skill and soft skills required in the modern workplace. Students need to learn to lead, but also how to be an effective follower and team player.

The lifetime university experience might include guest lectures, field trips, demonstrations — anything to keep the students relevant in their careers.

AI teaching agents

In the short term, we will still need a human faculty. Topical experts (not tenured) would share their views of the current state. And hey, instead of repairing Old Main and installing that new landscaping, let’s pay those teachers a decent salary, huh?

In the next two years, human-like AI learning agents will often make better teachers. This might sound like the Jetsons but it’s already here. Have you had a conversation with the mobile version of ChatGPT? This will only get better.

AI agents enable the creation of personalized learning pathways tailored to each student’s needs, performance, and goals. This approach can accommodate different learning speeds, styles, and even disabilities, leading to better outcomes than traditional classroom education. And, these teachers would cost far less and know … well, everything.

I do think there is a human role in the new learning environment as mentors and guides. Humans still need a human touch. Especially young students.

A learning cohort

I recently declared about the RISE marketing community: “This is my university.”

We have no curriculum or classes there. But we have each other — people from around the world teaching each other as we navigate this confusing world. Why couldn’t a real university be the same way? It can be, and needs to be.

That’s why I recommend a lifelong cohort of people (the subscribers) who become friends and support each other in a community. Today, education simply cannot end with a piece of paper. It’s a never-ending process, and we need each other.

A cohort could meet on campus once a year for some special programs but keep in touch constantly through an online platform. And the cohort should be multidisciplinary. It will be that way whether it’s designed that way or not. How many people are still working in a field related to their original major? Diverse views make the cohort more interesting and valuable.

The cohort would stay together for decades. I think it makes sense to add new people now and then, just as it benefits a community to have new members with new perspectives. A virtual community format allows people from many nations to be included.

Real learning happens in conversations, not classrooms.

Finally …

Did this post come across as mean? I hope it’s seen as tough love. I love so much about colleges and what they stand for. A university is hope. It’s a dream. It is the future.

But most career academics who read this will think: “We could never do this. It would screw up our US News and World Report rankings. This obsessive focus on rankings does not serve your students. Besides, Malcolm Gladwell and others have shown how the rankings are about as meaningful as a participation trophy in your kid’s soccer league. Yet, here we are, still doing the rankings rumba.

The world is changing faster than a chameleon in a Skittles factory. AI is rewriting the rules of education, work, and probably your department’s parking policy. And you’re obsessing about a made-up number in a magazine? University friends, it’s time to carve a new path that breaks the ranking shackles. Universities spent centuries building ivory towers. I’m proposing we build meaningful bridges to students and their real needs instead.

I know dramatic change seems daunting. And what I’ve proposed here can be poked and prodded and questioned. Here’s what I know. Imagine the most far-out scenario for our AI future. The reality will be much more insane than that.

Change has to start somewhere or universities risk becoming the academic equivalent of a typewriter repair shop. Disrupt or be disrupted.

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustration courtesy MidJourney

The post How to Reimagine Universities for the AI Era appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

Today, I’ll explain the Parasite Economy and why it is destroying businesses but opening up new opportunities for creators.

For many years, I’ve subscribed to Ted Gioia’s newsletter, “The Honest Broker.” It’s hard to describe this newsletter. Ted is a music critic and historian whose musings tend to wander all over the cultural landscape. But he has a knack for consistently connecting the dots in insightful ways, and I almost always learn something from his posts.

In an article titled “Are We Now Living in a Parasite Culture?” Ted makes an observation that is profound in its simplicity and wisdom. It goes like this:

“Nowadays, parasite businesses are the largest corporations in the world. Their technologies do many harmful things, but lately they have focused on serving up fake culture, leeching off the creativity of real human artists.

“Just take a look at the dominant digital platforms—and consider how little they actually create. But the amount of leeching they do is really quite stunning, especially when compared with the dominant businesses of the past.

• What does Facebook really create? Almost nothing. It relies on 3 billion users to create content (ugh!—their word, not mine), and then monetizes these people and their unpaid labor.
• What does Google really create? Almost nothing. Just look at how it destroys newspapers, while doing zero journalism itself. The comparison with a parasite could hardly be more apt. It feeds off the news, but never adds to it.
• What does Spotify really create? Almost nothing. The folks at Spotify don’t worry about their lousy app, because they’re so busy sucking blood from the creative economy, to which they contribute not one whit. Meanwhile, their CEO is now richer than any musician in the history of the world.
• What does TikTok really create? Almost nothing. This company relies on one million creators—none of them are employees. Most of them are working for hopes and dreams. TikTok is run like a Hollywood studio, but without cast, crew, directors, scriptwriters, or any creative talent whatsoever. But that hardly matters when you’re just a parasite living off unwitting hosts.

“Consider the case of the woman who attracted 713,000 TikTok followers and generated 11 million views for her videos—and got paid $1.85 over the course of five months. No that’s not $1.85 million—it’s one buck and eighty-five pennies. You can practically hear the lifeblood getting sucked out of the creator economy.”

Ted’s post continues, and he concludes by saying, “For the first time in history, the Forbes list of billionaires is filled with individuals who got rich via parasitical business strategies—creating almost nothing, but gorging themselves on the creativity of others.”

As usual, Ted made me think long and hard. I agree with him, but there is another side of this coin. In fact, the Parasite Economy is the best thing that ever happened to me in my professional life. And it can be for you, too. Today I’ll explain why.

The Parasite Economy’s Poster Child

On the surface, I am the poster child for “Victims of the Parasite Economy.”

I’ve probably added 20 million words to the social web through my blog and podcast alone. Google and its algorithm brotherhood crawl the internet like bugs, chewing my content like termites and then hurling it back out as an indistinguishable paste. The molecular material of my precious content is within everything now—no attribution, no money, no customers.

The years of effort behind this content are now part of the immortal glue that holds AI together. How have I been compensated for my significant content contribution? Nothing at all. I’ve never received one penny from Google, social media sites, or an AI company.

And yet, after 15 years of blogging and 12 years on the podcast, I keep churning out more. In fact, I think I’m doing my best work ever, giving away my most valuable ideas and insights every week.

Through Ted’s view, I should be incensed. But I’m grateful. Here’s why.

The Benefits of the Parasite Economy

While it’s true that I’m not making money from my content, I’ve made millions of dollars over the course of my creator career because I built an audience. You can’t have an audience without awareness, and you can’t have awareness without giving away valuable content.

I can see why Ted or any creative would feel abused because their content is consumed, loved, and shared without compensation. The key to surviving in the creator economy is not counting on your content for revenue. Those days are gone. So go ahead and grieve that reality, but get over it and look for other profitable ways to serve your audience.

I have 24 revenue streams. The most important ones are:

• Keynote speaking events and corporate workshops
• Personal coaching
• Book sales
• Private marketing retreat (The Uprising)
• Online classes

Until last year, I would have had marketing strategy consulting on the list — this was number one for many years. But I’ve been turning down these opportunities due to the wear and tear of travel.

My point is that, purely based on the awareness provided by the Parasite Economy, I’ve reinvented myself in a way that has allowed me to move away from the 9-5 corporate job.

The economics of our world today

I’ve never received a dime from Google or Facebook, but I’ve also never paid them (or anyone) a dime in advertising. So, at least for me, it’s been a fair trade-off.

Likewise, even a media company like The New York Times has been able to reinvent itself by diversifying into new media properties like podcasts, events, books, and speaking (they are building personal brands for their best reporters).

I am NOT dismissing the galaxy of negatives about internet parasites, including many of the good points Ted made in his post.

But I wanted to provide an alternate view that, with some creativity and resourcefulness, a creator can thrive, even under these strange circumstances.

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustration courtesy of MidJourney

The post The Parasite Economy: An Upside for Creators appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

About a year ago, singer Ed Sheeran partnered with Heinz on a new hot sauce. This is a great lesson literally pointing to the future of influencer marketing, and I kept forgetting to blog about it. But before I get to the dazzling marketing lesson from Ed Sheeran, let’s talk about the marketing problem with soap …

The new influencer landscape

I recently attended a meeting at a CPG company famous for its iconic soap products. They went through a big competitive analysis with profiles of all their traditional global competitors. At the end of the talk, I sheepishly raised my hand and suggested they had completely missed their biggest competitive threat. It isn’t P&G. It isn’t Unilever. It’s a 24-year-old TikTok star.

Influencer marketing has entered a new phase. The biggest stars’ celebrity power commands more loyal audiences than traditional TV networks. Mr Beast has more subscribers than Netflix.

These aren’t just kids shilling energy drinks. They are savvy entrepreneurs who are building their own mega-brands. Here are a few examples:

• Addison Rae – Item Beauty
• Emma Chamberlain – Chamberlain Coffee
• Charli and Dixie D’Amelio – Social Tourist (clothing line)
• Hyram Yarbro – Selfless by Hyram (skincare line)
• Blair Walnuts – Jewelry line
• Michelle Khare – MKfit (fitness app)

And, of course, there is Kylie Jenner, the world’s youngest self-made billionaire who sells her cosmetics in airport kiosks,

These young creators have something the big companies don’t—a credible, authentic voice and a loyal audience that visits them online daily to see what they’re selling next.

And that brings us to the marketing lesson from Ed Sheeran.

The beautiful ketchup move

Like the other influencers I mentioned, Ed Sheeran could have created his own line of hot sauces and a saucy empire. But why?

Partnering with Heinz made so much more sense. For one thing, Heinz actually makes stuff. They have contracts with suppliers, big factories, and an excellent distribution system built over a hundred years. So, with very little actual effort, Ed made his hot sauce dreams come true just by lending his charming face to the new brand. Win-Win.

And here’s the lesson for the mega-brands. Put your marketing ego aside. Go find yourself some beloved influencers and make them rich. They can out-market you, but you can out-manufacture them. It’s a match made in heaven.

Since the Ed Sheeran announcement, I’ve been waiting for a deluge of influencer-brand product launches, but there have been very few. I don’t get it. Influencers own your market, folks. Partner with them to disrupt your market before you’re the one being disrupted.

if you’d like to hear more about this subject, I discussed these ideas with my friend Amanda Russell. You won’t want to miss it!

Click here to enjoy Marketing Companion Episode 298

Please support our sponsor, who brings you this amazing episode.

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This episode is brought to you by Brevo (formerly Sendinblue). Brevo gives you the tools to attract, engage, and nurture customer relationships.

Now any business can build automated customer experiences, email marketing workflows, and landing pages that guide your customer to your main message. We are here to support businesses successfully navigating their digital presence in order to strengthen their customer relationships.

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The post A spicy marketing lesson from Ed Sheeran appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

My theory is that if you created a word cloud of the most popular subjects on LinkedIn, somewhere between “let me help you skyrocket your sales” and “AI will destroy us all” is imposter syndrome. It seems to be everywhere.

One of the people I follow declared that she is writing a book about imposter syndrome and then decided that she couldn’t do it because of imposter syndrome. It seems to be a ubiquitous subject these days.

On a personal level, I don’t suffer from it much. I figure if I am invited someplace, I belong there. Either the people who believe in me are stupid, or I should be there. And I don’t think people are stupid. I have not met too many people who are immune from imposter syndrome. Why me? I’m not sure but I received a lot of positive reinforcement early in my career that might have helped.

But it’s still a frustration in my business coaching practice. For people I help, imposter syndrome seems common. I can see how worthy and talented they are, and maybe I can get them to believe it for a week, but then they devolve and feel the insecurity a week later.

In the latest episode of The Marketing Companion, Amanda Russell and I talk about different sides of this issue, and she brings up an important idea. In her days as an elite athlete, she underwent “brain training” to help develop the mental toughness to overcome injuries and setbacks. Why wouldn’t we use these techniques in the business setting?

It’s an interesting conversation you won’t want to miss! Just click here to listen in >

Click here to enjoy Marketing Companion episode 293

Please support our sponsor, who brings you this amazing episode.

Bravo for Brevo!

This episode is brought to you by Brevo (formerly Sendinblue). Brevo gives you the tools to attract, engage, and nurture customer relationships.

Now any business can build automated customer experiences, email marketing workflows, and landing pages that guide your customer to your main message. We are here to support businesses successfully navigating their digital presence in order to strengthen their customer relationships.

Go to https://www.brevo.com/marketingcompanion to sign up for Brevo for free and use the code COMPANION to save 50% on your first three months of Brevo’s Starter & Business plan!

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Here are three colliding trends that seem to indicate a massive business opportunity:

1. AI models are running out of content they need to grow. Companies like OpenAI are so desperate they are bending the rules of copyright, or breaking them, to keep growing. AI companies are under attack by copyright lawsuits.
2. Some companies are willing to pay for new sources of content. Apple, for example, floated offers worth $50 million in licensing multiyear agreements with news publishers in order to train its AI models. OpenAI is paying the Financial Times, The Associated Press, and others for content. Here is a list of all the content licensing deals in progress.
3. We are at a unique moment in the history of writing. Individuals (like me) have been creating volumes of well-written, well-researched content for many years. Millions of creators are sitting on a mountain of content that could be monetized by AI, but its not.

Do you see where I’m heading here? This is a business waiting to happen.

The Content Creator Guild

“The biggest bottleneck today is data. We often have a pretty good sense of what are the AI algorithms that we could build if only we had the data to build them. But for a lot of applications, it’s just really hard to get the data.” — Andrew Ng, founder DeepLearning AI

Let’s look at this opportunity more closely.

Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, are revolutionizing how machines understand and generate human-like text. But these powerful AI models are only as good as the data they are trained on. They require vast amounts of high-quality, diverse content to improve their performance and produce more accurate and nuanced outputs.

The industry is so desperate for content it’s creating synthetic content — AI content fueling AI models — which represents an obvious long-term problem if most of the internet becomes self-generated.

Like it or not, AI companies require human-generated content to compete and grow.

This is where we, the creators, come in.

For years, we’ve been pouring our hearts and souls into blogs, vlogs, videos, and podcasts. We’ve amassed an enormous backlog of copyrighted material that sits idle, waiting to be discovered and appreciated by new audiences.

What if we could do more than just hope for organic traffic and a little affiliate ad revenue? What if we could actively monetize our content by licensing it to train the next generation of LLMs?

Let’s imagine this new content power. I have 15 years of blog posts, 12 years of podcast transcripts, and a dozen books about marketing sitting largely unnoticed, gathering pixel dust. Now pile on the extensive, multi-year assets of people like Seth Godin, Martin Lindstrom, Philip Kotler, David Meerman Scott, and hundreds of others, and you will have the most comprehensive marketing database on the planet.

Keep going. Gather the assets of the greatest content creators for music, home improvement, fashion, sports. This is a goldmine of nuanced expertise and opinion on any niche topic … just what the AI ordered.

The benefits of organizing

“I have content. Come and get it Elon.” — Mark Schaefer, a nice guy who enjoys money

No individual creator could get the attention of OpenAI or Google or Zuck. But a unified Creator Guild representing tens of thousands of creators could:

• Collectively negotiate with AI companies and other technology giants
• Set standards for data usage rights, royalty structures, and attribution practices
• Create a pool of money to compensate real humans in the AI Era
• Establish incentives for new human content creation
• Navigate legal gray spaces and establish precedents and guidelines around ethics and fair use. A Creator Guild could be a unified voice for our rights while providing AI content fuel that is free of legal ambiguity.

A Creator Guild is a slam dunk win-win that pays worthy creators and solves the biggest headache for AI tech companies.

Beyond the current AI opportunity, a unified organization could also have collective bargaining power to negotiate better terms with traditional publishers, platforms, advertisers, and others who are ripping us off.

A Creators Guild could create a support network for creators, offering resources, mentorship, and opportunities for collaboration. We could even fund our own research and development initiatives to explore new ways of creating and distributing content in the age of AI.

The time is now.

This is a good and obvious solution. My concern is that the train is already rolling without us.

Tumblr and WordPress are reportedly set to strike deals to sell our data to OpenAI and Midjourney. While users have an option to toggle a button and “opt-out,” there is no provision to “opt-in” to the money.

Hold on there Sparky. You’re going to take our work and monetize it … WITHOUT US?

Without a unified voice, creators are going to be squashed.

Plus, we don’t really know how our content is already being used in the planet-sized minds of AI supercomputers. If the tech companies are already skirting the law with YouTube and other platforms, chances are they’ve already scraped my blog and yours.

But here’s the problem — at some point, these companies are going to face the music with their reckless approach to copyright and guarantee safe, license-free results for text, images, and video generation. An agreement with a massive Creator Guild would be a huge step forward to provide lawful and ethical results.

To solve this problem, AI companies are already posting jobs for human writers (for less than $20 per hour!). They need quality, creative, niche content if they want these models to provide output that is less generic and more “human.”

But they will keep taking advantage of us and our work if we don’t have bargaining leverage.

An existential issue for creators

We are rapidly moving toward a post-link world. Today, if people share links to our content, we don’t get paid, but at least we are driving potential customers to our content. That benefit is vanishing.

Analyst Benedict Evans wrote (edited for clarity):

“If an LLM can read the internet and answer questions about it based on everything it’s read, then it’s not indexing pages and links anymore, but unbundling and rebundling the contents of the pages themselves. When we went from print to the web of links, we unbundled the publications: links sent us to one page.

“If I ask an LLM what credit card to get or what hotels are good in Rome, then it abstracts and synthesizes the answers from hundreds of web pages and doesn’t send anyone any traffic. It unbundles the job-to-be-done – was the aim to find a page, or to read some prose, or to get an answer? This is an existential question for the future of the web.”

The beginning of a Creator Guild

Here’s the part where you expect me to say, “Hey gang, join me and my new Creator Guild!”

Nope.

This is a big job … a complex job. It will take a sizable company with resources to organize talent and pay for lawyers to figure all this out. Perhaps this task might fall to an existing union like the Screen Writers Guild or the Writers Guild of America.

Or, perhaps some tech giant will get smart and create an opt-in contract that provides a monthly salary for the free use of content based on the size and quality of the assets (I’m sure an AI could figure this out!). Or, maybe a venture capitalist will read this post and organize a company around the idea.

I have faith in Adam Smith’s invisible hand. There is money to be made. Somebody out there will figure it out.

I hope this post is the spark that gets things going, and fast. Sign me up.

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustration courtesy Unsplash.com

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SXSW 2024 was a gathering of thought leadership, providing a glimpse of “what’s next” in media, technology, and marketing, among other topics. I’ve been attending SXSW since 2010. It’s expensive, crowded, and — with 500 sessions a day — overwhelming — but I regard it as an essential part of my professional growth.

Each year has its own personality. My first conference in 2010 represented the dawn of social media — unbridled excitement! SXSW 2024 seemed more somber as attendees pondered deep fakes, the existential nature of AI, humanoid robotics, quantum computing, inclusivity, and mental health.

I took pages and pages of notes — this is a serious learning opportunity! But I wanted to pass along at least a few observations. I want to emphasize that my experience is a tiny sliver of the SXSW 2024 reality. I skipped out on the celebrities, the movie debuts, and the glitzy brand activation parties in favor of relevant topics, smaller discussions and intimate dinners.

I attended a workshop on how to be a futurist. The big a-ha for me was approaching various future scenarios through storytelling. Articulating a narrative about the future makes you think through the implications of trends. Very useful.

The first research on Gen Alpha was interesting. Gen Alpha is 0-10 years old so this came through interviews with their Millennial parents. They are projected to be:

• Fiscally conservative, an outfall of parents who are in debt
• Highly aware of brands and brand preferences
• Already influential in family purchase decisions
• The first headset generation. They prefer VR to tablets
• Non-readers of book
• 40% spend at least three hours a day online, and 24% spend at least 7 hours a day on a smartphone (if they have one).

Researchers emphasize the critical value of intuition in the AI Era: “The greatest source of wisdom is in our bodies.”

An interesting idea: Imagine your brand as a character. What would it look like? What would it say? What is its aesthetic?

There has been progress with technology to detect deep fakes but the social media platforms have rejected it because hate and controversy are good for their ad sales. Experts point out that elections are already being disrupted around the world by deep fake content and the US election is going to be a misinformation shit show. Biggest threat in 2024 is voice fakes, in 2025, realistic video avatars. Sora was mentioned as a game-changer.

There are 100,000 applications that make deep fakes. Nobody stands a chance to discern deep fakes without technological support. We need AI to beat AI.

During a keynote discussion about OpenAI, protesters yelled outside, pleading to protect the jobs of graphic designers. Poignant moment and an uphill battle.

Interesting research on what creates customer immersion (beyond engagement):

1. Awareness – Overcoming distractions and getting their attention. Include them on their terms.
2. Willingness – They decide to participate. Is it worthwhile? Do we have the time? Are there others we know who are involved? Is it safe? Safety is crucial.
3. Connection – Does it meet expectations? What is it offering? Can I contribute? If you don’t make this connection quickly and clearly, you lose people. “I was drawn in, it seemed relevant.” Once they are engaged, is the safety validated? Learning about the norms of the group.
4. Investment – Risking their social capital, giving their attention, an ongoing investment. People want to see an immediate return. Is the community responsive to my needs?
5. Sharing – Earned by a gratifying experience. We want other people to share this experience. Community networks are the key to engagement loops (self-sustaining engagement, collective immersion)

SXSW 2024 was filled with thrilling brand activations like this 3D spatial computer promotion for a Netflix series.

I was encouraged to see a lot of content focused on the importance of word-of-mouth marketing as a “lived brand experience.” I wrote extensively about this in Marketing Rebellion as a key part of the future of marketing. I really think we are moving into a new era of brand marketing!

58% of Gen Z think the more absurd, the cooler it is. 82% say being weird is in. Perhaps discomfort is the future of marketing – breaking taboos.

Commercial humanoid robots are a year away and will be under $50,000. Good at moving things and lifting, nimble physical dexterity. Integration with AI allows more human-like decision-making.

TikTok has established an expectation that brands are defined by co-creation (re-mixing memes) and community instead of “broadcasting.” Co-creation is the language of the platform. You no longer have full control of your brand. Brands have to learn the language of creation. People expect brands to be part of the humor and that might poke fun at a brand.

There has been a lot written about the amount of time people spend scrolling on TikTok but what is not being captured the enormous time spent on creating for TikTok. It really stunned me to realize how many people are devoting their lives to ephemeral content in the hope of their 15 minutes of fame.

Another realization … almost every TikTok viral brand “success story” is a fluke. It wasn’t planned, it wasn’t strategized, it had nothing to do with an intentional creative effort. The famous cranberry juice case study is an example. TikTok’s recommendation for success: Lower your brand standards. Hmmmmm … that is not going to be a popular suggestion.

Growth in the gaming industry is stagnant, and the business is experiencing an upheaval due to consolidations and new platforms. Instead of new titles, growth is expected to come through interactivity and community.

With a history of employee abuse, the game industry is expected to be unionized.

SXSW 2024 was filled with a lot of movie star glitz, but I skipped that part (and the lines!) to focus on educational sessions that will energize me for the rest of the year!

Major marketing industry disruptors disclosed in various sessions:

• Hyper-fragmentation of culture and media. How do we reach them? 250 million creators = 250 million new media channels
• Rapid growth of Discord and other private communities
  Ad-free social media platforms
• No watercooler moments – no shared experiences due to isolation
• Spatial computing
• Immersive and metaverse — headset costs will drop, experiencing products will be transformed
• Data privacy — 2.6 billion data records breached in the last year
• Crackdown on collecting biometric data
• Data wallets. Consumers control the narrative
• Sustainability — Advertising eats up a lot of energy. Times Square could power 160,000 homes
• Neuroscience — EEGs, Eye tracking, wearables, neural links. Meta is working on a tech that can read your mind
• Real-time advertising reactions enabled by AI
• There is a backlash against purpose-driven marketing because too many brands make promises they don’t keep.

Japanese technology used human brainwaves to communicate with a 3d printer and print a functional guitar. The command line is “your thoughts.”

We are in a technology supercycle that will create sustained changes in the economy. The last example was the Internet. Three technologies are driving this cycle: AI, biotech, and interconnected devices.

What if somebody creates an “AI event” with thousands of fake accounts and a variety of real content and reactions? It would take us a long time to figure out it was fake, and by that time, it could trigger a real-life reaction. The end state of AI is not cartoon images; it is a war, stated futurist Amy Webb. You can watch her talk here:

AI is running out of data, so companies are inventing new devices to get more data into their systems. We are about to be surrounded by millions of sensors to not only know what to say next but also what to do next. VR, like Apple Vision Pro, is a face computer that will collect details about your life. It will read your intentions by reading your pupils, which react before your body does. It will know what you will do before you do it. There will be a battle for face supremacy.

If somebody steals your biometric or movement identity, there is no way to get it back or reset it.

The market does not reward safety. It rewards supremacy.

An organoid is a computer grown from human brain cells. This is already happening. Brain-based computing (organoid intelligence) disconnects our need for rare materials and massive energy consumption.

AI will create massive disruption in jobs and the economy. Governments need to create a Department of Transition (create a soft landing for businesses, move people to trades)

Compared to other years, social media, content marketing, and Web3 were down; podcasts, metaverse, influencers, privacy, experiential marketing, community, and storytelling were up. And of course, AI was featured in a thousand sessions!

Well, those are a few takeaways from SXSW 2024. Hope you found something useful here and maybe I’ll see you at SXSW next year?

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

The post What’s Next? Reflections on #SXSW 2024 appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

by Sonia Hunt, {grow} community member

It took me almost dying for a fourth time to get serious about my health and well-being.

At age three, I was diagnosed with severe food allergies, asthma, and environmental allergies – the trifecta nobody wants.

I managed my diagnosis the best I could while hiding it from the workplace for decades because it did not offer me the psychologically safe environment that I required.

Over the years, I rose up the ranks to Chief Marketing Officer, still keeping my personal and professional lives separate. This brought a double whammy of stress, anxiety, and unhealthy behaviors from both sides, which I somehow survived through.

In 2008, I found myself on the emergency room table for a fourth time in anaphylaxis and almost dead. The diagnosis was that it was a severe food allergy reaction, and it left me with hives all over my body for the next year of my life.

There was no way I could hide this from my CEO or my team anymore.

This incident forced me to be real about my health situation, become empowered to live in my truth, and get serious about improving my health and well-being in a way that could finally see me thriving across work-health-life.

I wanted to stop “surviving.” I wanted to see myself thriving.

And so, I began what became a new journey to optimal health and well-being, breaking down personal and professional compartments, advocating for myself and my needs, getting help when I needed it, and leading my teams by example by taking care of myself first and foremost and promoting they do the same.

As I look at the world today, I’m guessing this is a very good time to write about marketing career burnout and YOUR HEALTH.

Marketing career burnout and you 

Ten years ago, there was no talk of workplace well-being. Many of us grappling with health challenges endured a silent struggle behind closed doors, striving to maintain well-being while the corporate world demanded the separation of our personal and professional lives.

That thinking was shattered with the pandemic.

Today, there’s no more compartmentalization, and Gen Z rocked that torch in this fight against employers.

Marketers, in particular, have been through too much pain in too short of a time. We’ve been trying to manage everything as best we can — pandemic catastrophes, new rules of marketing, remote work, layoffs, crazy customer behavior, and this little thing called AI. I am exhausted. And you probably are, too.

“The work cannot suffer,” said my former CEO … but here’s what he really meant: The people could suffer.

I’ll venture to say the Marketing Leader has the worst job today.

Others haven’t agreed with me, but they aren’t marketers! There is no career on earth that has changed so quickly.

And it’s not just the hard skills. You’re required to evolve in new ways – with strong inner/core skills, including resilience and adaptability – and almost immediately required to be the expert in them.

Marketing career burnout is real, my friends. The data shows it, and I know it from personal experience.

Today, as the lines between personal and professional are blurred, the holistic well-being of Marketing Leaders becomes paramount.

Why? I believe the skills and mindset cultivated in the field of marketing align well with the principles of Healthy Leadership, making Marketing Leaders natural candidates to champion a culture of well-being, collaboration, and adaptability within their organizations.

But to champion this within your organization, you must first be healthy yourself.

Marketing leader, healthy leader

Healthy Leadership is about a simple formula:

• For your customers to thrive, the business must thrive.
• For the business to thrive, your people need to thrive.
• For your people to thrive, their leader must thrive.
• For you to thrive, you must prioritize your health and well-being first.

Yes, it’s that simple. Because, if you don’t, how can you:

• Be your best?
• Enjoy your work?
• Make conscious decisions?
• Drive the change you need?
• Lead healthily and by example?
• Be resilient to changing dynamics?
• Build long-term, valuable relationships?
• Adapt to the intricacies of business today?

For personal and career longevity, it’s no longer a nice-have to be healthy and well; it’s a must-have.

Being a Healthy Leader significantly expands your capacity to navigate dynamic landscapes, engage stakeholders, manage changing narratives, and cope with a need to be constantly “on” in a new remote-first work environment.

Beating marketing career burnout isn’t just a great personal decision. It’s a necessary business decision.

In my own journey as a Chief Marketing Officer who managed in a high-stress environment, I discovered an approach that seemed to be right under my nose. I could apply my best marketing skills to improve my personal health and well-being!

You’re the product

Your success as a marketer depends on vision, strategy, and execution that grows customers and your business.

Those same skills can be used to grow and improve your personal health and well-being using a simple formula: “Define + Implement + Analyze.”

With my engineering background, I’m all about systems that help us get to an optimal state – whether that be for the business or myself.

I realized the systems I used in marketing could easily be applied to my personal health with one slight twist: Think of yourself as a ‘Product.’

When you’re marketing a product (or service), there’s a systematic way to go about taking that product to a high growth stage.

In that process, you’re defining vision, current state, challenges, optimal state, and a set of strategies or tactics to achieve optimal state.

Then, you implement those strategies and collect data that will then be analyzed to see how far you are from the optimal state, tweaking the strategies in a cyclical process until you achieve the optimal state.

This works in marketing, and it can work for your health as well.

Applying marketing principles to health

Let’s look at three familiar marketing steps and apply them to your health.

1) DEFINE
Like defining a vision for your marketing, this step is about defining the vision you see for your health by identifying three things:

1. Key Challenges: what health challenges are you currently facing?
2. Optimal State: what does the optimal outcome look like for each challenge?
3. Tactics: what strategies will you put into place to improve each challenge?

2) IMPLEMENT
Define a set of strategies or tactics you can put into action to improve your health.

3) ANALYZE
Just as you would analyze marketing data, this step involves tracking the effectiveness of implemented health strategies, tweaking them as needed, and working toward desired outcomes

Let’s look at an example of one of the things I often hear from my executive coaching clients: “I feel stressed daily, but don’t know how to reduce it.”

Applying marketing principles to stress

1) DEFINE

• Key Challenges:
  • “I feel stress daily, but don’t know how to reduce it.”
• Optimal State:
  • Awareness: I know when I feel stress.
  • Management: I know the steps to reduce stress
• Strategies/Tactics: can be determined with help of a health coach or healthcare professional.
  • Physical health: Nutrition
  • Mental health: Mental Health fitness
  • Emotional health: Meditation
  • Spiritual health: Self-care activities

2) IMPLEMENT: the actions in this example are scientifically known to reduce stress.

• Nutrition — Primarily eat plant-based foods during weekdays
• Mental health — Therapy 2x/month
• Emotional health — 10 minutes daily meditation morning and night
• Spiritual health/Self-care — Walk for 10 minutes after every meal.

3) ANALYZE

• Track actions: keep track of what’s working, what’s not, how you’re feeling in a spreadsheet or app.
• Adjust what is needed to get to the desired outcome of reducing stress.

Then, repeat this system for every health challenge that you want to improve.

Over time, you’ll begin to determine what’s working for you and what’s not. Do more of what works and less of what doesn’t. In harmony, the strategies and tactics that are working will begin to, in this case, reduce stress because you’re eating nutritiously, exercising, more self-aware, meditating, etc.

This 3-step system guides you through defining awareness, management steps, and specific strategies such as nutrition, mental health fitness, meditation, and self-care activities for reducing stress.

This systematic approach aligns seamlessly with the visionary, strategic, and tactical facets of successful marketing work. Run this system through anything in your life, and you’ll realize that you can use your day skills to improve your health and well-being.

A thriving marketer leader

Marketing is a journey of perpetual adaptation, resilience, and, most importantly, self-care.

The truth becomes evident: when you, the marketing leader are healthy, your team thrives, and the business attains unprecedented heights of success.

Prioritizing your well-being creates a narrative that extends far beyond the metrics and strategies of the corporate world. You become a beacon of inspiration internally and externally. Your decisions, fueled by clarity and mindfulness, set the precedent for a work environment and culture of prosperity.

As the complexities of the marketing landscape continue to accelerate, the simple truth remains – personal health is the cornerstone of effective leadership.

It’s a journey of acknowledging the challenges, implementing proactive strategies, and recognizing that a healthy leader isn’t just an individual accomplishment; it’s a strategic imperative for the flourishing of teams and the endurance of businesses.

As you struggle with marketing career burnout, let one truth guide your way – thriving through health is not just a choice: it’s the essence of marketing leadership today. 

Sonia Hunt is a Fractional Chief Marketing Officer, Executive and Health Coach, Best-Selling Author, and TEDx Speaker in Health and Wellness. Her mission is to create a world in which everyone can thrive by building a foundation of personal health and well-being. For business inquiries, email sonia@soniahunt.com or visit soniahunt.com

Illustration courtesy Unsplash.com

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Annual social media prediction posts deserve their own category of boring. They usually name the same obvious trends over and over! This is the year of video! (yawn) And yet, we are in the midst of unprecedented, cataclysmic change. Let’s consider some non-obvious social media trends that are insightful, bold, and important!

And you will be happy to know that I barely AI at all (too obvious!).

This post covers 10 non-obvious social media trends:

1. Marketing speed

2. Why social media will upend search

3. The big new platform on the horizon

4. Why influence is everything

5. Social listening platforms in trouble

6. The essential role of community

7. Social commerce

8. Designer commerce

9. Watermarked content

10. Local content hubs

1. Marketing speed

This is the year for video! Just kidding. Couldn’t help myself.

Response speed is among the most overlooked and important factors weighing in on social media success, and nobody is talking about it.

A few months ago, I wrote a blog post tracing the history of speed in marketing and the implications of meme marketing. Today, achieving relevance on a channel like TikTok might require a response time of hours, or perhaps minutes, as memes emerge and fade.

Most companies are not built for this response time, especially if there are legal consideration. The speed of marketing today has vast implications for measurement, customer service, legal, and agency relationships.

One financial services firm I work with hired a lawyer for their marketing team just to speed content approval. How are you adjusting to the need for speed?

2. Social upends search

Everyone seems to be focused on how AI will change the game for search. But nobody seems to be noticing a much more significant and non-obvious trend. According to information from Statista, Gen Z is now conducting almost as many product searches on social media as Google:

This ties closely to the influencer marketing trend. The primary reason Gen Z visits social media is to catch up with their favorite influencers. And the main idea being shared by most influencers? New products they love.

But this isn’t just a GenZ trend. GWI reports in their 2024 trend report there’s been a 57% rise in baby boomers using TikTok since Q2 2021 … and they’re more likely to have bought a product or service online in the last week than Gen Z.

This suggests that SEO needs to be tied more closely to influencer marketing. Anybody out there planning for this? Is it even on the radar?

3. The big new platform

There seems to be just one significant new social media platform every five years or so. What’s going to be next? Nobody can say, but I have some clues.

Social media platforms have fragmented along generational lines. The only group growing on Facebook is 55 and older. The Snapchat crowd averages about 28. The average age of people on Reddit is 23. TikTok is the homebase for GenZ in their 20s. Everybody seems to like YouTube and Instagram

I think the next fracture will occur for Gen Alpha, the digital natives marching behind Gen Z. They’re looking up at their big brothers and sisters, thinking, “Naaaaah. We want our own place.”

And they will get it. What will it be like? Certainly video-oriented, but also expressing their value for authenticity and relationships. It might be something with only verified non-AI content. Maybe a cross between TikTok, Snapchat, and BeReal.

This might be beyond the next 12 months, but perhaps it’s time for a decentralized social network powered by blockchain. Just don’t call it blockchain. Transparency, control, and security will be mighty issues going forward and blockchain can help solve for that.

4. Influence is everything

The marketing world is in a state of massive transition. Advertising is less visible in a streaming media world and more expensive than ever. Where are these brand marketing dollars going to go?

I recently reported on new research from Ed Keller that points to one answer: Influencers. Ed found that the creator economy is massive — three times bigger than previously estimated. This trend has largely flown under the radar because it’s been so hard to measure.

Top YouTuber Mr. Beast just completed two months where he received more than 2 billion views per month. That’s staggering, unprecedented reach. He is perhaps the most influential media company in the world. A product placement with Mr. Beast might have bigger reach than an ad on the Super Bowl.

Not many people like being interrupted by ads. If they see them, they don’t believe them. But we believe each other, especially digital creators like Mr. Beast who feel like part of the family.

A new report found that 39% of consumers are watching more creator content than a year ago. Let that sink in. Can you imagine any other media property getting a 39% boost in one year? Advertising alongside creator content can jump-start the purchase funnel process, collapsing the awareness, interest, and consideration stages together.

The impact, reach, and influence of creators is exploding and yet an influence strategy is not even on the radar yet for most companies.

Creators are the media. Creators will dominate our marketing future. Are you onboard yet?

5. Social listening is in trouble

According to Edison Research, between 2022 and 2023, the percentage of people actively using the social community app Discord rose from 13 percent to 20 percent. You might think, “Wow. That’s a lot of growth. But here’s a chart that will really blow your mind:

First, notice the decline of young people using TikTok. Interesting. Now, look at the growth on Discord. In the age 12-34 category, daily usage rose from 26% to 42% IN ONE YEAR.

When have we ever seen growth like that on a social media platform? Never.

But here’s where it gets really interesting. Many of these vital community conversations on Discord are invisible to social listening platforms like Sprout Social and Sprinklr. Brands relying on social listening to monitor sentiment, mentions, and competitors are becoming more blind month by month as young people huddle behind the Discord /metaverse firewall.

6. Community is the future of marketing

The other day, I saw a provocative quote: “Creators are the new priests.”

It’s not about religion of course. It’s about assembling people. I can see this. In fact, I wrote a whole book about the idea. In Belonging to the Brand, I explained how the world is in a belonging crisis and those who can bring people together in community can create a deep and lasting emotional connection … which of course is the goal of your brand.

I’m not suggesting that brands take advantage of the emotionally vulnerable. I’m saying that brands are a part of our lives and there is room for brand-based communities that truly connect, and even heal.

I’m not alone in this view. The day I finished writing my book, McKinsey published a white paper claiming community is the next big thing in marketing.

Social media is not a strategy. It’s the beginning of a process that leads to community, as I wrote here.

7. Social Commerce, finally

In 2022, we witnessed the steady rise of social commerce, which allowed social media users to purchase products directly on social media. In 2024, social media platforms are expected to continue to become popular shopping outlets for consumers.

Furthermore, it’s projected that by 2026, global social commerce sales will reach a whopping $6 trillion, with the US having approximately 108 million social buyers by 2025.

A HubSpot survey shows that 22% of social media users purchased a product directly from Instagram, followed by 21% of consumers who bought directly on Facebook.

“Live commerce” combining influencer, livestreaming, and impulse buying eCommerce has taken off in Asia and this is the year it makes its mark in the rest of the world.

8. Designer content

OK, dream with me for a moment.

The business of social media is a battle of recommendation engines. The platform that can feed you the most fascinating and addictive content wins, because the longer you stay there, the more information they collect, the more ads you see, and the more money they make. For better or worse, the goal is to develop algorithms that create addiction, which is another story entirely.

Now let’s say Instagram learns that you love photos of kittens. Specifically, you want cute kittens dressed in human clothes. Why wouldn’t Instagram simply connect you to an AI that generates endless photos of cute kittens, like this:

I generated this image on MidJourney in five seconds. Here is the prompt I used: Cute kitten dressed in a blue gingham dress, photorealistic. In other words, this was extremely easy to do.

Why wouldn’t Instagram make you even more addicted to its platform by giving you exactly what you want, every day, every click by literally harnessing AI to generate your ideal, addictive images?

Stay with me. Within 18 months, we’ll be able to create full-length AI-generated movies on our laptop. Why wouldn’t Instagram and other social platforms create exactly the video content you want every day? At some point, Netflix and Disney will be doing this, too. You’ll get custom movies delivered to you some day soon.

We’ll just sit there sucking down content all day because we’re so mesmerized by those kittens. Maybe that’s how the Matrix started! You heard it here first: We can blame The Matrix on kittens.

9. Watermarked content

This is the year we will see massive disruption from deep fakes. In fact, it will be more than disruption. It will be chaos. I’ll bet we see at least one death this year attributed to deep fake content/misinformation.

We simply must have some kind of safety watermark for content so we know what’s true. There is progress in this area, but the challenge is creating a watermark that can be universally detected yet can’t be faked.

If you’re working in social media and content creation, this will soon be a major priority for you.

10. Local content hubs

Bill Landry

In my hometown of Knoxville, we have a local celebrity named Bill Landry. I could argue that he was the first independent video creator to monetize an audience — but it wasn’t over YouTube. It was over local TV.

Bill was the writer, director, producer, and actor in a video project called The Heartland Series. He filmed 1,400 short stories about Appalachian history, food, crafts, and rural life. Bill was a remarkable storyteller and his little videos were broadcast on the local TV station, sold as DVD sets, and even put together in a book. Because of his self-made celebrity, Bill was an in-demand speaker.

The classic creator model — build an audience and then monetize. But this was happening in the 1980s!

This is the only partnership between a “creator” and mainstream TV I’ve ever heard of. But why couldn’t this format be widespread today?

Today’s local TV studio has plenty of unused production and ad sales capacity, while local creators need a revenue stream, production facilities, and an audience. It makes total sense. Why wouldn’t local TV stations produce local cooking, sports, and music shows for a livestreaming audience and create a new revenue stream?

This is actually a retro idea. The early local TV stations hosted lots of local talent to fill the airwaves. Today, there seems to be a wall between traditional TV and streaming content, but why? If social media is so crowded, why not reimagine local TV as a relevant community content hub?

Perhaps the most non-obvious social media trends involve posting content and earning audiences in non-traditional places.

So there you have it. I hope a few of these non-obvious social media trends made you think, and perhaps provoked thoughts about new marketing strategies and business opportunities. The world of marketing is endlessly fascinating, and these trends are just the tip of the iceberg of what’s ahead!

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Top image courtesy Unsplash.com

Kitten image was created on MidJourney

The post 10 Non-Obvious Social Media Trends You Need to Consider Right Now appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.