I think most people have a love-hate relationship with LinkedIn. Even if you’re a fan, you’re probably annoyed by spam, AI-generated content and comments, and wonky algorithms. LinkedIn success is a challenge for us all.

Well, I have some good news for you. My recent conversation with LinkedIn guru Richard Bliss won’t make these problems disappear, but he does help you navigate the platform for a more productive and enjoyable experience.

In the latest episode of The Marketing Companion, Richard and I cover:

• The fundamental strategy for personal success
• The end of LinkedIn “pods”
• How LinkedIn is fighting AI and actually depressing the value of comments
• The truth about the success of video on the platform
• The growing power of collaborative articles
• The best strategy for LinkedIn newsletters
• … and much more.

For many years Richard has been my go-to advisor for all things LinkedIn and I know you’ll enjoy this Master Class in LinkedIn success strategy. Just click here to listen!

Just click here:

Click here to enjoy Marketing Companion Episode 301

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

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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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Illustration courtesy MidJourney

The post An inside view of LinkedIn success appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

This week marks the fifteenth anniversary of my blog. Crazy, right? I realize that nobody cares about an anniversary like this … I don’t even care, honestly … but I thought I would use the milestone as a teachable moment because blogging changed my life. And here is the main lesson of the milestone:

To stand out in this world, you have to be known. To be known, you have to show up consistently. Consistency is more important than genius.

Unfortunately, this is where most people fail. They stop and start, or perhaps they never start at all.

In my Personal Branding Master Class, I show a slide depicting my personal income attributed to “being known.” My income grew steadily over time (except 2020!) because the more I am known, the bigger my audience, the greater the opportunities, the higher the book sales, and the more valuable the speaking and consulting engagements. This progress can only come through consistently showing up with helpful content.

Creating meaningful content is hard work, and at low times, I wonder if it’s worth it. While I’m working on a blog post, my friends might be reading, hiking, or cooking a great meal. Blogging is a sacrifice.

But when I emerge from this introspection, I return to the same conclusion: Everything started from the blog, and every business benefit comes from the thought leadership I’ve built from this space. In fact, without a doubt, blogging changed my life forever, in these five ways:

1. Deep emotional connection

A few years ago, I received an email from a blog reader: “I’ve been reading your blog for three years. It led me to buy your latest book, and it is the best business book I’ve read in the last ten years.”

It was signed by the CMO of a Fortune 100 company. Two years later, he hired me for a consulting project to transform his content marketing department.

Let’s dissect what happened:

• A stranger built an affinity for me through my blog.
• Over time, the affinity became trust … a strong enough bond for him to hire me, even though I had never met him.
• To earn his business, I didn’t have to apply for the job or bid against competitors. I was simply awarded the work, and I named my price.

If I didn’t have a blog, how much would I have had to spend on advertising to have a success story like that?

Brand marketing is about building an emotional connection that differentiates you from the competition. What a wonderful world we live in where a guy like me has the opportunity to build relationships — and a business — through my content. You can do it, too.

2. The introvert’s revenge

I hate networking. I am the worst networker in the world. I’m an introvert who loves a quiet dinner with friends, but put me in a room with a lot of people, and I want to crawl into a hole.

I know that sounds weird coming from a person who delivers keynote speeches in front of thousands of people, but it is different. I come alive on a stage because I can teach and entertain, and I’m really good at it. But shaking hands all night at a cocktail reception is my idea of torture.  I am a mingler misfit.

But through a blog, I can build business friendships with people every day without actually meeting them!

3. The fuel for a legacy

When my blog hit its tenth anniversary, I wrote that my biggest accomplishment was that over all those hundreds of posts, I never humiliated myself. My record still stands!

I have not made a major stumble because blogging forces me to clarify my ideas. Before I put something into the world, I think it through deeply. Is it thorough? Have I considered all sides? Am I being kind and showing up in a way I can be proud of?

These clarified blog concepts are later used in my speeches and books. The seeds of my legacy are planted here.

4. Personal reward

When I was in the corporate world, I would get an annual performance review (if I was lucky!).

Although I generally had an idea of how I was doing, there always seemed to be a zinger in there. Nobody gets a perfect performance review, right?

The cool thing about blogging is that I get a performance every week. Here is a comment posted on LinkedIn recently by Jim Hunt.

Isn’t that awesome? It makes my heart soar. I just can’t believe how lucky I am to have an audience of people who appreciate my work.

That’s the fuel that keeps me going. When I create a blog post, a podcast episode, or a book, I have only one mantra in my head: “I will never let you down.”

5. Personal healing

In the first chapter of my book KNOWN, I wrote about the darkest time of my life. This was so difficult for me to reveal, but I did it to show the reader that when I started my personal branding journey, I was a mess. I was below zero. I wanted to encourage people — If I can do it, you can too.

In those dark days, the stress of my life was killing me. When I went to see a doctor, my blood pressure was so high she would not let me leave her office. She was afraid I was about to have a stroke or worse.

The doctor demanded that I monitor my blood pressure every hour of the day. And this is when I witnessed something miraculous. There was one hour every day when my blood pressure was normal. It was when I was blogging.

There is a zen about blogging that sends you to a different place of focus and peace, even when the world is terrible.

Even more importantly, when I started posting my ideas online, I received feedback from people who didn’t know what I was going through. It was so nice to connect with people who didn’t know of my suffering. I was so tired of being sad.

Perhaps it is too dramatic to say that blogging saved my life, but mentally, physically, spiritually, and financially, I am transformed from creating these words on a screen.

Thank you, friend

I will never forget the moment 15 years ago when I received the very first comment on this blog. It was a moment of awe. Somebody read my work and spent their precious time commenting on it.

I have never forgotten that feeling. I re-live that sense of awe every day when I get feedback on my work.

Whether you have followed me for 15 years or this is our first meeting, thank you for being here. I’m just getting started, and I will never let you down.

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 15 Years On, Five Ways Blogging Changed My Life Forever appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

Too short for a blog post, too important to ignore, here are some short takes from the world of marketing and beyond.

Money drives social isolation

Recently I posted about how an unintended consequence of the massive amount of personalized content choices has sent young people into sociological siloes. They consume content in isolation and have fewer shared experiences than their parents.

This launched a debate about why this is happening. I think the answer is simple: Money.

Money drives everything. What are we trying to accomplish as marketers? Personalization. For your business, for any business, it’s about personalization. The more we personalize, the happier our customers are because they get exactly what they want.

There is no “deep state” making us personalize content as part of a master plan to control us. We personalize and segment people because it’s good business. But what one customer wants is different than what you and I want, so now we’re in our own content silos — by choice. We have EXTREME individual choice regarding content and entertainment — in fact, far too many options. But nobody wants to go back to the days of one daily newspaper and three network TV channels, right?

Our individual choices put us in silos because we want content our way, supporting views of the world aligned with our own views. In a weird way, there is a business benefit to social isolation. But personalization in the extreme creates loneliness.

Weird LinkedIn Tricks

All of a sudden, I’m getting LinkedIn notifications that people are responding to posts that are three, four, and even five years old. This is unexpected and weird. So I asked LinkedIn expert Richard Bliss what the heck is going on. He pointed to three possible factors:

1. I had been asked to participate in collaborative articles through LinkedIn. I’m not sure what I’ve done that put me into that category. But Richard said this is putting me in front of a new audience that is checking out old content.
2. An algorithm change is trying to put relevant content before a new audience. It is possible your content is being indexed and then served to small groups interested in that topic.
3. The recent partnership between LinkedIn and Google means your articles are now being indexed by Google and showing up in search results.

Apple is different

In a recent post, I forecast that the speed of marketing is one of the most pressing and interesting trends.

A member of my RISE community asked, “Is Apple the exception to the importance of speed in marketing? They don’t participate in memes or other in-the-moment-marketing.”

Great question. Apple is different because it is a luxury good. They’ll never be part of the social media track meet (like Gucci or Lamborghini). They are never first to market, but they’re never too late either.

Luxury good marketing has a completely different flow and pace. I discussed this in a podcast episode with Amanda Russell — one of the most fascinating discussions!

AI and humanity

I had a Twitter discussion with a friend who claimed, “We can’t trust humanity.”

I responded, “I agree that humanity can’t be trusted. But there are people who we trust. Those are the ones who can transcend the AI misinformation onslaught. There are individuals you’ll always turn to.”

The business case for the personal brand!

The big question

The most important question for marketers in the future will be: “Can an AI bot do this?”

This will push us to be more creative, more weird, and more human, or we will be replaced. Truly, the most human company wins.

No, it’s not

I’ve been preparing for a big new speech about brand communities and have found lots of articles touting community successes. Many people confuse a loyalty program with a community.

Loyalty programs are great, but that’s not a community. Having a loyalty card shows you love the brand, but it’s not a group of people working toward a common purpose. A community needs to know each other.

Let’s bust an AI myth

Here is advice I see over and over, and it drives me crazy: “AI isn’t going to take your job, but someone who knows AI will.”

This implies that if you know AI you will somehow be safe. This is false. AI will overtake many knowledge worker jobs whether you know AI or not. And there may not necessarily be a person behind that AI. The technology will become ubiquitous and companies will use it to reduce headcount ruthlessly. This is already happening in the tech industry.

This advice is like telling a person who made horse buggies in the 1920s: “The automobile won’t take your job, but somebody who knows automobiles will.” No, automobiles eliminated their job, not some person. And even if you “know” automobiles, your buggy business is dead, no matter how much re-training you have.

I’m a positive person, but I also want to be realistic about what is happening.

Distrust is the default

I couldn’t sleep after a long overseas flight, and while flipping through Instagram, I saw a post featuring other-worldly, mesmerizing butterflies. Then I wondered, “Is this real? Is nature really this beautiful, or did somebody make this up?” There was no way to tell.

It saddens me that I can’t even look at butterflies these days without being skeptical. Distrust is the default now.

And now, some good news

Over the next few months, we will hear A LOT of bad news about AI. Deep fakes. Political misinformation. Bullying and chaos.

The bad stuff makes great headlines, but don’t miss out on the extreme new levels of discovery, innovation, and beauty that have been unleashed by AI.

A non-profit called The Earth Species Project aims to use AI to interpret animal communication systems. That makes my heart skip a beat.

So embrace the chaos and look at how AI is bringing new beauty into the world.

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

Image courtesy MidJourney

The post The business benefit of social isolation and other observations appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

OK, I’ve had enough of this. In four out of my last five coaching calls, the business leader on the other end of Zoom told me their main platform for content is LinkedIn. No blog. No content on a website. Just LinkedIn.

No, no, no. Also, no.

It’s time to stop the insanity. Today I’m turning you from the dark side and explaining why LinkedIn cannot be your primary content platform.

Back to basics: What are you doing?

Why are you creating content in the first place? There are two main reasons: Enhance your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or build personal authority.

Increasingly, I favor the authority strategy because I believe SEO success is out of reach for many businesses.

Building authority means you don’t have to depend on SEO algorithms any more. You create content so worthy that people subscribe to it so they don’t miss a thing. In a virtual way, subscribers are saying, “I believe in you. I’m interested. Send me more content.”

That’s a beautiful thing. But it all depends on:

Your email strategy

When you publish on your website, or even a place like Substack, you own the email addresses. This, my friends, is probably the most valuable commercial asset in your business.

If you own the email list, you have the opportunity to directly grow relationships, announce commercial deals, and collect information that can be used to personalize offers.

How many email addresses do you own from the content you publish only on LinkedIn? None. So why is LinkedIn your content platform? They own your audience, and we don’t want that.

The SEO killer

Let’s say you’re one of those rare businesses or individuals who have a real chance to win the game of SEO roulette. You’re publishing your brains out on LinkedIn. Content every week. Maybe every day!

Now, if somebody wants to find you through search and give you their money, they go to Google and enter juicy keywords. What’s the chance they’re going to find some post you created on LinkedIn? Go ahead and try it. Do LinkedIn posts show up in any Google search? No.

But what about a blog post, or a YouTube video, or a podcast episode? Yes. That’s the content that fuels SEO on Google. When was the last time you ever had a post on LinkedIn go viral? That’s what I thought.

Oh, one more thing. Who owns LinkedIn? Microsoft. What else does Microsoft own? Bing. Google’s enemy. I don’t think Google is going to give LinkedIn a search assist.

And it gets worse …

AI and LinkedIn do not play well together

A friend is studying the impact of AI on search more closely than anyone I know. And she recently made a shocking observation.

When she queried AI bots about the top thought leaders in AI and search, none of the familiar experts posting through newsletters and LinkedIn showed up. In fact, all of the information provided by AI bots was absorbed from bloggers she had never heard of (but she is following them now!).

Her suggestion: Start a blog right away! At least for now, blogs on websites are driving the content on AI, not LinkedIn posts. This is the future of search.

Evaporation Station

There’s one other risk I should mention.

Do you remember when Facebook had a popular blogging platform? It was called Notes. In October 2020, Facebook eliminated this feature without warning. Millions of people lost their blog content in a moment.

Do we expect LinkedIn to do anything like that? Well … did we expect Facebook to do anything like that?

How to do LinkedIn right

Here’s where people get confused. LinkedIn is not a content platform. It’s a distribution system.

Your brand is fueled by four types of content: written, video, audio, or images (like Instagram). For most business professionals, there really are three: written, video, or a podcast. Pick one and put everything you have into it.

Now, once you have that content, you can use social media to deliver that content to your audience. For example, once you have a blog post ON YOUR WEBSITE, you can distribute it on LinkedIn, Substack, Twitter, and other places. But your website is the home base, the primary platform, always.

Here’s a strategy to create and distribute your content in a smart way on LinkedIn.

1. Research shows that text-based content does best on LinkedIn. Neither video nor podcasts are effective because those content forms do not start conversations in the comment section. Conversations mean dwell time for LinkedIn! So if LinkedIn is important to you, I would focus on blogging.
2. Publish a blog post on your website.
3. Publish this same post as an article (not a link) on LinkedIn two days after you publish it on your website. I post a little later to send a signal to Google that I am the author of the content. I am the original source. Send the search traffic to my website.
4. When you publish your article on LinkedIn, be sure to include an attractive graphic or photo. As people scan their LinkedIn feed, their eyes will be attracted to the image, then the headline, and then, if you’re lucky, the content. So images are important.
5. At this point, LinkedIn will expose your post to a small percentage of your followers. If you can attract comments (conversations) in the first hour after it is posted, LinkedIn will then expose it to the rest of your audience, and perhaps even people outside your followers. Huzzah!

Going forward

Starting with a blog-first strategy provides many other benefits, of course. It might not be the sexiest content in our TikTok world, but for business professionals looking to stand out on LinkedIn, it makes a lot of sense.

A blog can also serve as a portfolio of your work. It provides a centralized location where potential employers, clients, or collaborators can see your expertise, writing style, and the topics you are passionate about. Whether you’re building a brand, looking for a job, or hiring somebody, eventually, people come to your website.

If you take one thing away from this post, I hope it is this: If you’re only posting your content on LinkedIn, you’re grotesquely sub-optimizing your personal branding and content marketing effort. LinkedIn and other social media platforms can play a crucial role in personal branding. But please post all of your content on your website first and then send it into the social media distribution system.

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak at your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

Top photo courtesy Unsplash.com

The post Why you need to ditch LinkedIn as your content platform appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

Today I present a trove of little topics that are too short for a full blog post but too important to ignore.

A radical idea about AI and marketing

Obviously, AI is here. It’s the new gold rush, setting off feverish activities in every corner of the marketing world. And, there is a lot of debate about marketers learning these tools and new skillsets.

Of course we need to be learning how to use these tools. But in the long term, I don’t think most marketers will need to master prompts and MidJourney techniques. The AI will come to us.

In the early days of the web, a person needed to know computer code to navigate this new world. There was a lot of pressure on marketers to learn code at that time. Do we code now? Not really. We have lots of apps already coded to do our bidding. I believe AI will be similar.

AI is going to be INSIDE everything. It’s working its way into every important app and utility we use. Will we need to learn prompts? Even that is already going away in many cases. I don’t think we need to go to the technology. The technology will come to us in almost every case, making every task easier, faster, more creative, and more efficient.

Take a breath and give it a little time. I think I’m right.

A thought experiment on AI and creativity

So I’ve been thinking. Which is always dangerous.

ChatGPT and other AI applications extract information from the web to construct the best content or images to serve the user’s prompts. So the great ocean of content on the internet is the available “food” for the application.

Programs string together a bunch of words into the combinations most likely to match the user’s prompts. They are not thinking or even using basic logic. They are simply re-assembling pre-existing content into new forms. All AI content is based on history.

And, it’s working really well. We’re in an era today where a great proportion of the content on the web is being generated by these AI servants. In time, I can easily imagine that MOST of the content on the web will come from AI.

This means that in the near future, most of the “food” on the web that fuels AI will come from … AI.

Yikes. I told you that it’s dangerous when I think.

How to keep up

Yes … the marketing world is overwhelming. How do you keep up with everything going on?

I don’t think you can, at least at any meaningful level. Are there true experts in anything any more? However, you can dabble.

Experiment with something every day. Dabble in the metaverse, buy an NFT, create AI art on MidJourney, test the limits of ChatGPT.

The key to marketing leadership today is not having all the right answers — It’s having the right questions. And to do that, you have to dabble.

The new LinkedIn game

Unfortunately, being active on LinkedIn means you’ll have to engage in a new game. It’s called “Is this person real?”

Increasingly, profiles that want to connect with me are suspicious — An attractive woman with a man’s name, a young person with an improbable 20-year work history at top companies, a profile photo that just looks a little off. Welcome to “Is this person real?”

For now, this is just annoying. But if LinkedIn doesn’t gain control of AI-generated profiles, it could seriously jeopardize the usefulness of the platform.

LinkedIn Pick-Up Lines

I could probably write a very entertaining book on all the stupid “pick-up lines” people use on LinkedIn. But here is a doozy, a first question from a new contact this week: “How are your competitors feeling?”

How would I know how my competitors are feeling? And if I did, why would I tell you?

Who is teaching people to network this way?

If you wouldn’t ask me this question in real life, why would you ask me on LinkedIn? LinkedIn seems to suck the common sense out of people.

Ugh

Oh what the heck … while I am beating up LinkedIn, I offer you the worst cold pitch ever:

The cold can

It was fun for me to see Coors create a fun new marketing campaign based on its famous color-changing label.

Why was this special for me? Because the color-changing label was my invention!

Textured can

Back in my corporate days, I was the marketing director for the packaging division of Alcoa. One of my goals was to find ways to add novelty and marketing excitement to aluminum cans. This was a tough job because we couldn’t do anything that might slow down the high-speed manufacturing and filling processes. So my attention was placed on what we could do with the inks on the label to create special effects.

At least four of my innovations were commercialized: Cans with a rough, textured surface (photo), the aluminum bottle, colored tabs, and ends, and the color-changing Coors can.

Fun fact: When demonstrating the color-changing can, I used to pour cold water into an open-topped can. The temperature-sensitive ink worked so well you could see the cold water sloshing back in forth inside the can as it filled. It was like a magic trick!

Product development was always the favorite part of my marketing job. It’s been fun seeing my ideas come to life.

A free book adventure

My friend Mary Kathryn Johnson put together an incredible resource: A choose-your-own adventure video based on the content and authors from The Most Amazing Marketing Book Ever. I have never seen anything quite like this. On one level, the content is exceptional. On another, this is a very interesting content format that might spur more marketing ideas for you!

There’s a great lesson here. Sometimes the way you tell a story can be as creative as the story!

Sharing versus over-sharing

In the Personal Branding Master Class, I always get questions about sharing personal stories versus over-sharing on the web. Dana Malstaff (Boss Mom), who is a genius, framed it beautifully in a video: “Share your scars, not your wounds.”

And of course, AI in the workplace

Just when you thought you were going to get through a blog post without one more mention of AI, here I am, disappointing you. But I thought this was fascinating:  44.5% of US workers are already using ChatGPT in the workplace, according to Deutsche Bank (33.1% in the UK).

By now, you know that ChatGPT was the fastest-adopted technology in history. But this fact shows that it’s more than a novelty. It’s sticking around in the workplace … and it’s just starting.

For me, the most astounding development isn’t the speed of adoption, it’s the speed of innovation. Little wonder that Sunder Pichai, the CEO of Google, said that AI is the most profound development in history, “More profound than fire, or electricity, or anything we have done in the past.”

Indeed.

Hope you enjoyed the collection of thoughts today!

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak at your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

Illustration courtesy MidJourney

The post A radical idea about AI and marketing appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

I founded a community of marketing geeks called RISE and we just unleashed something wild and wonderful. In fact, it is astonishing, unique, surprising, and, well … amazing! It is The Most Amazing Marketing Book Ever.

Before I PROVE to you that this is the most amazing marketing book, let me tell you how we got here. It’s an amazing story in itself!

The seed of amazing

The RISE community is dedicated to learning about the future of marketing and it’s populated by many global subject matter experts.  Anything you want to know, there is probably somebody in the community who has an answer — podcasting, advertising, strategy, video, social media … we have it covered by people out there in the world doing the work.

Within the community, an idea was floated to co-create a book together. This was intriguing, but it was also pretty scary, to be honest. Could I rely on dozens of busy people from 15 different time zones to come together and create a book that will be part of my brand? This could be great, or it could become a disaster.

But ultimately, I loved the idea of helping people in my community realize a dream of becoming the co-author of a book. I’m a teacher, and it energized me to think of all these friends coming along on a journey to be an author. Seemed like a worthy legacy, so I sponsored the project. And I was right. It was a bit scary, but it was also one of the most inspiring projects I’ve ever participated in.

We created something extraordinary. We created something brave. And maybe it’s even a little crazy!

Yes, it is amazing

Amazing is something that makes you go WOW. This is why I think this book is a wow:

As far as I know, this is the first book created entirely by a Web3 community. The RISE community was brought together by a tokenized cryptocurrency, held together with NFTs, coordinated over Discord, and created by a decentralized global team that is benefiting equally from the success of their work. Even the book cover was created, in part, with generative artificial intelligence. So you’re witnessing a new era in book writing!

Second, the people who contributed to this book have more than 750 years of accumulated marketing experience. That’s a wow, right?

Third, this book breaks content barriers. Unfortunately, most business books these days are nothing more than a blog post with 240 pages of fluff. Not this one!

Every page is filled with original and helpful ideas from passionate professionals. I challenged my community friends to create insights, not just rehashed information you can find in a blog post somewhere. They delivered.

Whether you’re a seasoned pro or a small business owner trying to establish your first marketing strategy, get out your highlight marker. You’ll find some new ideas here! And it’s 100% human content. No ChatGPT or other AI was used to create the content of this book.

Finally, this is a book made with heart. There are many reasons to write a book. An author might want to make money, seek fame, or achieve a personal dream. This book is a celebration of the spirit of our community.

A fun book for every marketer …

There is so much knowledge jammed into this little book, you’re sure to find great ideas no matter where you are in your career. Here are a few of the nuggets you can discover in the Amazing book:

• Why you need to focus on the first hour after posting content on LinkedIn
• The importance of trigger-based lead nurturing
• Why the highest customer lifetime value might be associated with direct to consumer marketing
• The reason using words like “check out our deal” repels consumers.
• How obsession with metrics can actually undermine your business
• Why Google loves 2,000-word blog posts.
• How “purpose” can make or break a podcast
• The ideal length of videos for every social media channel
• The best formula for copywriting
• How to build a future-proof social media strategy
• TikTok’s most common recording errors
• The unexpected power of Twitter threads
• The traditional marketing channel that consistently delivers an ROI of 112%
• How word of mouth marketing is driven by 10% of the population
• How brands are already integrating into metaverse games and experiences
• Basic steps to integrate AI into your everyday marketing tasks.

That’s just a taste of the interesting morsels in the book. You’ll want to read it cover to cover!

But there’s more …

Not only did the community write and edit the book, they recorded a narrated chapter for an audiobook. My audio editor proclaimed that this was the most ambitious project she had ever tackled. 36 narrators? Insane.

But it worked! The result is singularly unique. Be prepared for a chapter from Ireland, Italy, Australia, and more. Each chapter is like the proverbial box of chocolates — you never know what you’re going to get!

This is not another book created by one voice, one mind. This is 36 people giving you their best effort and most unique ideas. Here are the authors and subjects covered:

• Marion Abrams (Podcasting)
• Lisa Apolinski (Customer experience)
• Larry Aronson (SEO)
• Victoria Bennion (Blogging)
• Joeri Billast (Web3 and NFTs)
• David Bisek (Branding)
• Richard Bliss (LinkedIn)
• Al Boyle (Copywriting)
• Julia Bramble (Twitter)
• Anna Bravington (Experiential Marketing)
• PepperBrooks (Inclusive Marketing)
• Marci Cornett (Marketing Research)
• Mandy Edwards (Facebook Strategy)
• Laura Vendeland Doman (YouTube and video)
• Robbie Fitzwater (eMail Marketing)
• Giuseppe Fratoni (Copywriting)
• M Valentina Escobar-Gonzalez, MBA (Instagram)
• Ian Anderson Gray (Livestreaming)
• Kami Huyse (Social Media Strategy)
• Mary Kathryn Johnson (Artificial Intelligence)
• Rob LeLacheur (Traditional advertising)
• Fiona Lucas (Community Building)
• Jules Morris (Digital Advertising)
• Scott Murray (Consumer Behavior)
• Daniel Nestle (Strategic Communications)
• Chad Parizman (Podcasting)
• Brian Piper (Metaverse)
• Frank Prendergast (Marketing Research)
• Sandee Rodriguez (Promotional Products)
• Mark Schaefer (Personal Branding)
• Bruce Scheer (Marketing Measurement)
• Zack Seipert (Influencer Marketing)
• Samantha Stone, (Marketing Strategy)
• Jeff Tarran (Direct Mail)
• Joanne Taylor (TikTok)

… like I said, something for everyone!

But it gets better

I guarantee this is one of the most useful and unusual books you will ever own!

I am extraordinarily proud of this book. I think it represents a breakthrough in community productivity and publishing. And please check out the RISE community. We have many other exciting projects and activities going on. Maybe you’ll be the star of our next event or project!

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak at your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

The post This is the Most Amazing Marketing Book. And I can prove it. appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

Each year, a small group of marketing leaders gather at a beautiful lodge in the woods to think big thoughts about the future of marketing. Our aim is to help each other remain relevant in a fast-changing world. The event is called The Uprising (every marketing rebellion needs one, right?).

Although the experience was merely two and a half days, this was an intense immersion in new marketing ideas, natural beauty, and meaningful new relationships.

Honestly, we covered so much ground that it is intimidating trying to capture what happened there. I was literally on the edge of my seat, listening to experts projecting how new customer connections, communications, storytelling, and technologies would revolutionize marketing.

Here are a few highlights. I asked some of the participants to add their own ideas of what they loved.

Relentlessly relevant

The purpose of this event is to support marketers with their personal relevance in a fast-changing world. I set the stage with ideas about strategies about how we need to combine core competencies with “waves” of change coming at us in the world. I encouraged the participants to view the following sessions as possible seams of relevance.

Mathew Sweezey provided insights on his networking strategy that has connected him to some of the top marketing minds in the world.

Reaction: “The most profound takeaway was around trust in the age of AI and this idea of Kinship economy and community as a media. Community will discern the truth and it is becoming an arbiter of media.” — Jola Burnett

“Day one, hour one, Mark mentioned the idea of wearing the crown only you can wear. This struck me in a new way, and allowed me to think about the skills and experiences I can contribute to an organization in a new way.” — Sarah Neely

A new way to look at story and content

Sarah Neely

Sarah Neely is a word of mouth marketing expert and she discussed new strategies to ignite content to relevant audiences. She provided an inspiring example of how she was able to create conversations about Red Bull in the early days of the product with almost no budget.

I’ve often said that the economic value of content that is not seen and shared is zero. Sarah provided actionable examples of ways to take content directly to potential customers. A common theme is to craft content that is Authentic, Interesting, and Relevant.

Reaction: “I talk about story all of the time — crafting it, encouraging it, finding the story. BUT I didn’t really ever consider a brand story being a text between friends. Mind blown — different perspective unlocked!” — Dr. Jules Morris

A new way to connect to customers

Alex Ledesma and Robbie Fitzwater

Robbie Fitzwater provided case studies on how to “out-human” bigger competitors. By using humor, superior content, and timely email personalization, he showed how smaller retailers can out-maneuver titans like Walmart and Amazon. He provided an example of how an intimate connection strategy more than quadrupled sales for a small equestrian company.

Alex Ledesma provided an update on how brands are beginning to use Web3 and NFTs to unleash new customer value and premium programs that lead to loyalty and new revenue opportunities. While this is still within the domain of larger brands right now, he explained that adoption is growing.

The new world post-pandemic

Jola Burnett

Jola Burnett is a VP for Ipsos, one of the most important consumer research companies in the world. She provided a far-ranging view of fast-shifting trends. A few highlights included:

• Consumer behavior is influenced by a view of the world immersed in many crises. We are in a polycrisis.
• “Purpose” is growing in importance to consumers as a way to combat problems with their purchasing power. She revealed provocative research showing that there is an expectation that brands should be actively solving global problems.
• Jola led a discussion on the responsible use of artificial intelligence. Being replaced by AI is a massive concern for young people and 64% of Americans say the government needs to take action. We also talked about AI jeopardizing “purpose” as well as jobs. “Trust” will be a rare commodity in an era of deep fakes.
• While most people are currently “meh” about the metaverse, Ipsos research shows massive economic potential and new marketing opportunities by 2030.
• Ipsos believes the most significant opportunity on social media is livestream commerce. This trend is massive in China and picking up speed in Europe and the U.S.
• GenZ is suffering from mental health pressures from multiple fronts. This is creating a move toward core values of wellness, happiness, and less screen time.

Reaction: “My most profound insight (there were many!) was how fast the world and our field is changing and how much AI is going to change our lives in ways we can’t even imagine. I know everyone felt this deeply.” — Heather McKay

Making hope a habit

Hallerin Hill

I love to do is add little surprises to The Uprising experience. This year I hosted my friend Hallerin Hill, a multi-talented writer, consultant, Grammy-nominated songwriter, and philosopher. He connected the dots beautifully between his modest childhood and a relentless pursuit of self-improvement against the odds. He showed us all that we can make hope a mindful and systematic daily process.

Reaction: “I think we were all coming into the event a little stressed. Hallerin gave us the right message of hope at the right time.” — Mandy Edwards

A new way to look at social media

Kimberley Gardiner

I kicked off a discussion with the view that social media should be viewed as the beginning of a marketing process.

Richard Bliss provided a masterclass on using LinkedIn to dramatically increase reach.

Kimberley Gardiner, CMO of Tractor Supply, showed how she is emphasizing employee-generated content to create human connections with customers.

Daniel Nestle tied the conversation together by showing how all of this work can lead to community — the ultimate emotional connection.

Reaction: “I thought I knew how to use LinkedIn, but his insights from his experience and his consulting has changed forever how I will approach and use LinkedIn.” — Mandy Edwards

A new look at AI and marketing

Dr. Jules Morris, an expert on creativity, gave a whimsical presentation demonstrating how AI alone generally is terrible when it comes to insight and creativity. She led a discussion on how AI can effectively jumpstart idea generation but ultimately the creative spark comes from humans.

Dr. Karine Abbou has been studying AI impacts and opportunities in content generation and other marketing tasks. She concludes that AI will overtake almost all content marketing activities. Humans will focus on insights and personal brand building. She also proposed that AI will overwhelm traditional search strategies, making many current websites useless.

Reaction: “The integration of AI into search means that chat and prompts are replacing keywords and links. This is an important development for SEOs and companies that depend on search traffic, but also a fundamental change in how we access information on the web.” — Aaron Hassen

A new look at marketing and purpose

Keith Reynold Jennings

Keith Jennings dispelled the notion that marketing strategy starts with “why.” He provided case studies to show that the “who” and “why” lead to the “what” and “how.” He was highly critical of companies with “avowed” values (no action) versus companies that were actually putting their values to work (demonstrating purpose).

Keith went on to explain the difference between “story” and “narrative” when it came to explaining purpose.

Reaction: “My favorite presenter was Keith Jennings. I learned from Keith that to effectively connect Purpose to my Marketing my WHO and WHY must guide my HOWs and WHATs.” — Kyle Ackerman

A new way to look at communicating with customers

Nancy Harhut

Behavioral Science expert Nancy Harhut provided a tour de force explanation connecting technology, strategy, and consumer psychology to expose a new view of marketing effectiveness. Her presentation was divided into three sections:

• It’s not about how we think, but how we feel
• Our choices are less rational and more reactional
• Reliance on auditory cues that are baked into our ancient psychology

Reaction: “Nancy gave so much practical information, that was just incredibly fascinating. She shared material that was relatable and useful.” — Sarah Neely

The highest value of The Uprising

While the content provided during the event was significant and meaningful, the focus on personal interactions and conversations were equally important. I designed The Uprising to be heavily weighted toward interconnection and shared experiences that will provide a lifetime of value.

Nancy Harhut: “This is where marketers advance.”

Dr. Jules Morris: “The best three days of the year.”

Dan Nestle: “Mark’s 3-day marketing think tank is the most powerful gathering of eclectic thinkers and marketing visionaries in our field today. One hour into day one, your brain is buzzing. By breakfast on day three, you’re on a shared mission with 30 new friends. It’s incredible.”

Kimberley Gardiner: “By far one of the best marketing events I’ve ever attended. I came away with several key actionable takeaways and even better, a connected community of awesome marketers!”

Karine Abbou: “Those three days triggered something in me that I’ve never been able to express so far. Best experience of my marketing life.”

Sarah Neely: “The speakers, the intention, and energy Mark has created, the collaborative environment and the curated group of attendees are all so important to making this event special and intimate.”

Robbie Fitzwater: “Was wild to see this event with basically zero hierarchy. Everyone learned from and with one another in a really powerful and fun way!”

And this kind of sums it up this marketing experience. It was something more. It changed our lives …

I want to invite you to experience The Uprising with me soon. The next retreat will be at Kilkea Castle in Dublin September 26-29, 2023. Learn more about the Uprising in Ireland.

We’ll also be back at the lodge in Tennessee in 2024! Here are the details > Learn about the U.S. Uprising here.

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak at your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

The post Reflecting on the most rewarding marketing experience of my life appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

I am always fascinated about how marketing employment is changing and what it means to our careers. I recently came across this list of in-demand skills for 2022, according to digital marketing job data on LinkedIn.

But something about this list does not make sense …

1. Copywriting
2. Search Engine Optimization
3. Social Media Marketing
4. Marketing Automation and Technology
5. Audience Building
6. Project Management
7. Data Analysis
8. Conversion Rate Optimization

As you look at this current list of marketing skills, is it chronicling the hottest skills from this year, or from 2013? Isn’t it amazing that we are in the fastest-changing career imaginable and companies are still hiring for the same skills as ten years ago?  

To me, this confirms that most marketing leaders and their strategies are still way behind the times!

Here are some skills that I think SHOULD be in demand and on the list based on where marketing is heading

1. 1. Content development/placement
   2. Customer service/UX
   3. Event management / experiential marketing
   4. Community management (including Web3 and metaverse)
   5. Personal branding specialist
   6. Influencer outreach/strategy

Granted, some of these skills might be showing up in other places on LinkedIn, but wouldn’t you think at least one or two of these would make the LinkedIn marketing employment list?

If you love thinking about our future as much as I do, you’re going to love the new episode of The Marketing Companion. Dennis Yu and I debate the merit of these lists, and Dennis digs into some very controversial ideas about operationalizing social media marketing and out-sourcing entry-level marketing jobs to other countries. So interesting!

This is certainly a hot topic and a discussion you will not want to miss!

Please support our extraordinary sponsor. Our content is free because of their generosity.

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Illustration courtesy Unsplash.com

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I’ve been blogging for more than a decade and I realized I’ve never answered this question — the most-asked question I receive — “What is the best social media channel for my business?”

So I will try to answer it today.

I normally cringe when I hear this question because to give a very specific answer, I would need to know a lot more about the company, competition, etc. The optimal marketing mix might be different for every business.

But I do have a general answer … and it might surprise you.

Is it really about the best social media channel?

When somebody asks this question, it’s normally because they are just starting out with social media — and they’re overwhelmed! They have some inclination that their business needs to be on Facebook or LinkedIn and they don’t know where to start.

Here is the place to start: You’re asking the wrong question.

You see, the real value in marketing is driven by content. The content is the fuel behind the social media engine. Social media is simply the distribution system for the content. So the first question isn’t “What is the best social media channel for my business?” It’s “What is the best content for my business?”

Again, it might seem overwhelming, but it’s not.

If you’re asking this question, you’re probably a small company with limited resources. So, you can’t do everything and be everywhere. To keep it simple, you basically have four content choices:

• Writing something like a blog
• Recording audio like a podcast
• Creating video as you would see on YouTube or live-streamed
• Visual content suitable for Instagram or Pinterest.

To stand out on the web you can’t be great in 10 places. So if you have limited resources, my recommendation is to focus on one content form, master it, and build an audience. Create something meaningful at least once a week.

Which content form do you choose? There are many considerations like competition and customers, but in the end, I recommend choosing something you enjoy because you will have to stick with it for a long time to have success.

Social media is a distribution system

Are you creating great content? Now you have some fuel to power your social media engine.

• Once you have a blog, for example, you can now post this in multiple places like LinkedIn, Twitter, Substack, and Medium.
• If you have a video, you can publish all or part of it on YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram, to name a few.
• Likewise, a podcast can be distributed in many creative ways. YouTube is actually a huge discovery engine for podcasts.

Many of these activities can be automated, assigned to a virtual assistant, or you can do it yourself once you have the content.

What is the best social media channel for my business?

Now let’s get more specific.

With limited resources, you can probably only succeed in a limited number of places. Let’s focus on your GOALS.

I recently had a student who managed social media for a high-end private athletic club. You might think they need to be posting on LinkedIn, or perhaps Facebook.

But we had to consider the GOAL.

All their memberships were sold out. Their biggest goal right now is finding enough workers for their kitchen staff. So they are considering content on TikTok showing what a fun place it is for employees. On the surface, the teen-oriented TikTok seems like a strange place for this elite business … but not when you consider the needs of the club right now.

That’s why it’s hard for me to be prescriptive in any general way about the best social media channel without knowing many details about the goals of the business and the competitive landscape.

What are your short-term and long-term goals? Don’t post just to post. Serve the goals of the business.

Best social media channel strategy

I think if you follow the three steps I’ve discussed today, you’ll get your company in the ballpark when choosing the best social media channel:

1. Keep focused on the short-term and long-term business goals
2. Commit to consistent content to fuel social media
3. Regard social media as the distribution channel for your content

Now, this post only addresses an organic (non-advertising) social media strategy. There would be another set of considerations for a paid strategy, and most businesses need that too. But in general, I think this should help you sort through the best social media channel for your business on a macro level.

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant.  The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram. Discover his $RISE creator community.

The post What is the best social media channel for my business? appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.