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}.

A friend forwarded a post to me penned by digital superstar Neil Patel. I like and respect Neil a lot, and generally I agree with him, but in this case, I don’t — and I think his post provides a great lesson in the value of personal branding.

Which works better? Today we’ll examine the business value of the personal brand versus corporate brand.

Personal brand versus corporate brand

Neil’s post goes through a detailed analysis of the number of followers on his personal and corporate accounts. He does his best to attribute revenue streams to his personal brand versus corporate brand, to determine which might be the most important effort. The corporate brand drove more revenue and he came to this conclusion:

If you look at the biggest companies in the world… Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Pepsi, Proctor and Gamble, etc… they are all corporate brands.

Sure, you can build a big personal brand like a Kardashian, which is great, but they don’t generate anywhere near the revenue a strong corporate brand can generate.

This doesn’t mean a personal brand isn’t effective.

I’ve used it to kick-start my corporate brand.

A lot of corporations like Beats by Dre used a lot of personal brands (celebrities) to create something amazing, and then they eventually sold it to Apple.

So ideally, you should leverage both to their maximum potential.

I think Neil is missing a few important points.

Neil is the brand

So Neil’s conclusion is to focus on corporate brand — like Apple or Microsoft. The corporate brand drives more revenue for him.

First, let’s take a little test. What is the name of Neil Patel’s company?

Think hard now. If Neil’s corporate brand is working so well, driving more revenue, and meaning more to his customers, obviously it should be a well-known name, right?

I’ve followed Neil for more than a decade and have no idea what the name of his company is. I assumed it was Neil Patel. (It’s NP Digital).

My point is, how do you separate the two? My guess is that no matter how many referrals Neil gets, a new customer is going to do business with him because it is Neil freaking Patel, one of the best-known digital gurus in the world.

Similarly, do you know the name of my business? Nope. Nobody really cares that I lead Schaefer Marketing Solutions. People hire me for me.

What is a brand?

The second problem with Neil’s analysis is that he is attempting the Sysphian task of attributing revenue to brand marketing efforts.

There are two kinds of marketing, and confusing them causes problems.

The first kind is direct (or performance) marketing. This is easy to measure and is directed at revenue generation. Examples would be advertising, SEO, and, to some extent, content marketing. If you spend money on ads, for example, you can generally measure how much revenue comes in.

Brand marketing helps distance yourself from the direct marketing battle. Your image and reputation create the expectation of a feeling you have toward a brand. The words Disney, Nike, or Coca-Cola mean something to you because of the tremendous effort they put into brand marketing. This moves them above commodity status.

Brand marketing delivers loyalty, preference, and, often, the ability to charge more.

But here’s the problem. It’s almost impossible to measure brand marketing. Most people associate Coca-Cola with their whimsical polar bears. How many cans of Coke does a polar bear sell? Who knows? But the brand image creates meaning that separates it from the competition.

My point is, when Neil compares the personal brand versus the corporate brand, he’s mashing together direct marketing with brand marketing. He’s trying to provide direct attribution to how well he is known, and that’s very difficult, or impossible, to do.

The personal brand is everything

Last year, I whined to a friend about my book sales. “I’m writing great books,” I said. “Why don’t I sell as many books as Seth Godin?”

“Because you’re not Seth Godin,” my friend replied.

Exactly.

In many ways, Seth, Neil, and I are in the same business. We speak, we write, we consult.

But Seth Godin can sell more books, charge more for his speaking fees, and attract bigger consulting engagements than me because he’s at the top of the marketing influence scale. It doesn’t matter if my books are better, cheaper, or more beautiful. His personal brand is bigger than mine, and that trumps everything.

For the same reason, I don’t think Neil even has a “corporate brand.” Neil is able to drive crazy revenue streams because he’s known, loved, and trusted. Sure, he does a great job with SEO, ads, and content. But the real key to his success is the reputation, authority, and presence that makes his personal brand soar.

Putting this into action for you

I don’t want to dismiss the power of corporate branding. If you can afford an ad on the Super Bowl, go do it. But most of the people reading this article will never have that opportunity.

Remember that branding is about creating an emotional expectation that leads to awareness and loyalty. It’s hard for people to fall in love with an ad, a logo, or your SEO scheme. But they can fall in love with you.

Neil is an SEO and advertising wizard. He might be able to trick people into clicking a link or an ad, but he can’t trick them into buying. That decision is made because of his reputation, his body of work, and the social proof coming from reviews and testimonies.

I hope you take a simple lesson from this tale. Your personal brand is everything.

What do you want to do in this world? Make more sales? Write a book? Sell a course? Speak on the biggest industry stage?

All worthy goals, but the only way that will happen is if you are KNOWN.

In Neil’s article, he said he brings in about $20 million a year. Could he have done that 10 years ago? No. Five years ago? No. His revenue grows and his opportunities expand the longer he works on his personal brand.

That’s why you need to be working on your personal brand now.

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 Personal Brand Versus Corporate Brand: Which is More Effective? appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

“Good artists copy, great artists steal” — Pablo Picasso

I was just scolded in a Facebook Group.

I love nature and participate in several communities that share photos and experiences with wildlife. One group is dedicated to sharing photos of birds. I don’t have a great camera like most of the people in the group, but I recently posted a watercolor painting I did of a popular local bird called a black-capped chickadee.

I received many warm responses from people who loved the art, and they encouraged me to share more. In fact, this post received more likes (275!) than any post in the group for the entire year. Here is the art:

But then the group administrator stepped into the comment section and asked me if the painting was based on my own photo. I said no, and he threatened to kick me out of the group. I’ll get back to this controversy and how it relates to you, your content, and AI, but first, I need to set up my case with a little story about Leonardo Davinci.

Bet you didn’t see that coming.

Art is iteration

Leonardo DaVinci was arguably the most creative human being who ever lived, a magical genius who was endlessly curious.

What struck me about his life was how most of his ideas and breakthroughs were collaborative. Even his most famous illustration, “Vitruvian Man,” was inspired by Vitruvius, a Roman author, architect, and civil engineer who lived centuries before Leonardo’s time.

Leonardo was a beloved man, always surrounded by friends. One day, his friend Francesco showed him a sketch of a man in a circle, based on the detailed descriptions from a Vitruvian book. Part of the Renaissance movement was rediscovering ancient ideas and reframing them in modern terms, and Francesco was excited by his revelation. It spurred Leonardo to consider the dimensions of a human being in mathematical terms.

Another friend, Giacomo Andrea, scribbled some interpretations of the Vitruvian idea and showed Leonardo how the human figure could be circumscribed in a circle.

Leonardo was mesmerized by the idea and inspired to find his own manuscript of Vitruvius’ ancient work. He developed his famous drawing from those ideas, and in both scientific precision and artistic beauty, his illustration is in an entirely different realm than the work of his predecessors.

Leonardo’s most famous drawing was built upon an ancient idea that inspired a scribbled drawing by a friend that led to a discussion and more drawings by friends. Yes, Leonardo delivered something exquisite and unique, but it could only have happened from a combination of ideas from four different people.

Placing this in the context of today

Let’s connect the dots and get back to my painting. Where did the inspiration for the bird come from?

I’m not a good enough painter to create something out of my head, so I needed a model. Here’s my process: I go to MidJourney — an app that creates generative art — and type in what I want to paint, like, “watercolor painting of a black-capped chickadee on a branch,” and the program delivered this:

This computer image is much better than the hand-made painting I ultimately produced, but it gave me a general direction. I reduced the busy background and used a technique that I favor to create abstract patterns behind the bird. I changed many little details, largely due to my limitations as an artist!

My work was not completely original. It is an iteration of an AI work — which is an iteration of many other artworks. I participated in a virtual collaboration. Leonardo would have loved it!

The AI work that served as my model is an amalgam of other artists. Am I hurting these artists by not providing attribution? No. The AI art is simply a guide, but I’m producing something of my own.

If you go into any major art museum in the world, you’re likely to see art students sitting at the foot of a painting, drawing it. Iteration and practice are how we all learn to be great bloggers, podcasters, speakers, and video producers. The excellent work of a creator comes from thousands of intentional and unintentional sparks from those who came before us.

The very day I was scolded, somebody from my RISE community asked me, “I loved your blog post today. Can I steal that idea for my own?” I was flattered and, of course, agreed. What a wonderful moment! Somebody is making progress in the world based on inspiration from my own work. My writing provided a spark of momentum for another person.

That’s how the creative world works, at its best.

The future of creators and copyright

Let’s bring this down to a practical application and the problems we face today.

All creativity and invention depend on iteration. Today, the existing copyright laws aren’t built to handle AI amalgamations. Similarly, AI companies aren’t built to reward or even acknowledge individual contributions. Creators are suing AI companies. AI companies are suing creators. Something has to give.

I want to be clear that I am not dismissing true copyright infringement, where wholesale content is literally lifted and pasted without attribution. This has happened to me many times, and it hurts. More than once, a famous author stole something right out of one of my books without attribution  … and later apologized, but that doesn’t change anything, does it? They stole it on purpose.

Similarly, the recent lawsuit that The New York Times filed against OpenAI showed many examples in which OpenAI software recreated New York Times stories nearly verbatim.

In an IEEE Spectrum article, authors Gary Marcus and Reid Southen pinpoint the problem.

“LLMs are “black boxes”—systems in which we do not fully understand the relation between input (training data) and outputs. What’s more, outputs can vary unpredictably from one moment to the next. The prevalence of plagiaristic responses likely depends heavily on factors such as the size of the model and the exact nature of the training set. Since LLMs are fundamentally black boxes (even to their own makers, whether open-sourced or not), questions about plagiaristic prevalence can probably only be answered experimentally, and perhaps even then only tentatively.

“…The mere existence of plagiaristic outputs raises technical questions (can anything be done to suppress such outputs?), sociological questions (what could happen to journalism as a consequence?), legal questions (would these outputs count as copyright infringement?), and practical questions (when an end-user generates something with a LLM, can the user feel comfortable that they are not infringing on copyright? Is there any way for a user who wishes not to infringe to be assured that they are not?

This is the ultimate answer. We need a process where truly generative content is free from copyright constraints. If we don’t, the future of creators — and breakthrough creativity — is in jeopardy. Perhaps we need an official designation for generative content that assures a work is so far from an original that it is free from licensing issues. Maybe we call it a genuine fake? : )

In any event, we need to recognize a truth of the human experience — the most imaginative movies, art, and books we love were built on the shoulders of others.

Or, perhaps, the servers of others.

Something new: My bird painting and a few of my other watercolors are now available to buy as prints at this online shop. 

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. 

Images courtesy of MidJourney

The post Artificial Intelligence, Iteration and the Future of Creators appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

The other day a friend told me how she was planning to fight the encroachment of artificial intelligence tools replacing writing, graphic design, and other human creator skills. “It’s taking the heart and soul out of our work,” she proclaimed. “This is nothing less than an existential crisis presented by AI.”

It took me an hour to talk her off her cliff.

But perhaps you’re feeling some of this anxiety and sadness, too. I’ve thought about this a lot. HUMAN skills are being effortlessly replaced by AI. If you’re a creator, you’d have to be a sponge-like creature at the bottom of the Mariana Trench NOT to have an emotional reaction to what’s going in.

So let me share some calming thoughts with you today. Yes, there is an existential crisis presented by AI. Let’s deal with it in a rational and productive way and come out stronger on the other side. Today I will put our challenge in the context of three lessons … and provide a solution at the end.

Lesson one: The story of the calculator.

I’m old enough to remember the profound controversy that erupted when low-cost personal calculators became adopted in the 1980s. Suddenly, any person could solve complex math problems, even if they were terrible at math.

The educational system was the first battleground for this new threat. Teachers asked questions like:

• Is it fair to let students use this technology on homework? In the classroom? On tests?
• If we assign a project, how will we know if students are “cheating” by using the calculator?
• Do students still need to learn math?

Those questions probably sound familiar because they are the same questions posed about technologies like ChatGPT and DALL-E today.

So what happened with the calculators? They took over the math scene.

1. Everyone became a competent mathematician.
2. Calculating technology has become integrated into our daily lives. We don’t even need calculators. The math is done for us on websites and spreadsheets.
3. In a way, calculators became a second brain for us. Instead of math, we could spend that time doing something more productive. I haven’t done long-form math to solve a problem in more than 20 years. I am perfectly happy with that.

Lesson one: Content-generating AI is here to stay … and it’s going to become exponentially better. It’s incredibly useful. It’s already being integrated into everything. You have no choice but to embrace it and use it to your advantage.

Lesson two: An industry disrupted.

When ChatGPT was released, I immediately called my friend Shelly Palmer, an acclaimed tech analyst.

I published our discussion as a podcast episode and blog post, and he explained how this development paralleled disruption in the music industry. Before 1986, recording music required a band, singers, and perhaps an orchestra. Within a year of the advent of digital music production, half of all professional musicians lost their jobs.

“People claim this AI development isn’t like that,” he said. “No, it’s EXACTLY like that. This will replace a lot of content creator jobs.”

But there’s also a lesson about personal survival here.

In Shelly’s example, the “commodity” studio musicians lost their jobs. But the most-respected songwriters, producers, and technicians thrived. So did the elite musicians whose improvisational talent and technical acuity were always in demand.

If you’re providing “information” in your job, you will probably be replaced. If you’re providing valuable “insight” and improvisation like those star musicians, you’ll still have a bright future.

Information loses. Insights win.

Lesson three: Everybody writes. Literally.

I recently reviewed Ann Handley’s wonderful new edition of her book “Everybody Writes.” Ann launched this just days before ChatGPT took over the world (two million subscribers in 10 days!). She probably had no idea that with AI, literally everybody writes!

Just as the calculator made everybody competent at math, artificial intelligence makes everybody competent — perhaps even excellent — at writing, art, and video production. One friend posted online: “I don’t have a creative bone in my body. Now I’m creating fantastic art.” He is selling his art as an NFT collection.

Similarly, a busy friend who never had time to write now finds her thoughts are being expressed beautifully through ChatGPT in mere seconds. “I am going to write a blog post every day!” she said. “I’m going to write a book!”

Creativity has been unleashed everywhere. This is life-changing stuff.

And then … there is me. I worked for decades to become an excellent writer. I was a journalism major, a communications professional, a blogger since 2009, an author of 10 books. I put in the work to be an effective and respected writer.

Then came the shock of my career: I asked ChatGPT to write a specific essay that would have been appropriate for my new book Belonging to the Brand, complete with academic references. And, oh yeah, write it in the voice of Mark Schaefer.

The darn thing did it. It did it very well. In five seconds.

I felt depressed thinking about the months I spent writing that new book. While the bot could not have come up with the vision and insights that form the book’s thesis, and it can’t pepper the narrative with meaningful childhood stories, ChatGPT could have done much of the heavy lifting and saved me weeks of time — weeks of my life!

Sure, people will find dumb AI mistakes, create funny posts about it, and we’ll all have a laugh. They probably laughed about the first cars and telephones, too. But let’s not lose sight that ChatGPT is damn near miraculous in its ability to create effective content (and so much more!)

We need to be intellectually honest, swallow our pride, use this tool boldly, and then leverage the new time savings to build new greatness for our businesses.

While there is an existential crisis presented by AI to professional writers like me, I’m not too worried. There is hope for you and me …

This is what saves us.

As far as I can tell, there are three strategies to help us survive the existential crisis presented by AI.

1. The personal brand is everything.

For nearly a decade, I’ve been screaming from the rooftops that you need to be working on your personal brand.

I’m not worried about my place in the changing world because I have an emotional connection with you. You read this blog because you presumably know me, trust me, and like my ideas. Some of you have been reading this blog for more than a decade and will continue to do so no matter what happens with our robotic overlords.

My personal brand will save me. It will save you too. In fact, I think it is the ONLY thing that can protect you in an environment where important life skills are commoditized.

If you have not taken your personal brand seriously, you must. As you may know, I have a popular course that can get you started in the right direction. It’s the best course of its kind anywhere:

2. Pivot now.

I talked to a guy the other day trying to start a new career as a corporate blogger. In fact, he spent quite a bit of time and $10,000 on some course promising to teach him how to become a professional blogger (whatever that is). He is unknown in his profession and has no special expertise.

I gave him a demonstration of ChatGPT by creating a post on a topic of his choice — in five seconds. Of course he was amazed. I then had to explain to him that he was probably unemployable. That was really, really hard to do. I’ve never said those words to anybody before in my life.

His next question was, “but where can I get a job?”

He’s not accepting reality. He needs to pivot into something else. Maybe you do, too.

Even if this fellow is an excellent writer, most companies don’t need excellent writers. They need Google-sufficient writers. ChatGPT is Google-sufficient.

I know, I know. Corporate storytelling, epic content, and blah blah blah. Sure, we need some of that. But 95 percent of corporate content is simply Google-sufficient.

I urge you to have a clear-eyed view of what is happening. If you think the emerging AI tools will not impact your career (for better or worse), you’re wrong. Learn enough to know what you need to do next.

A resource to help you would be the book Cumulative Advantage, which discusses strategies to become newly relevant against all odds.

3. Own it.

I’m guessing there were thousands of people in calculator denial in the 1980s. They embarked on a Sisyphean struggle to hold the line on long-form math. Resistance was futile. Or, maybe it’s still happening on a Reddit thread somewhere!

The point is, the people and institutions that integrated mathematical automation into their business were so far ahead of the resisters.

For the first time, AI has poked its head out of secretive laboratories and made a home in our lives. It’s fun and easy. With a little practice and creativity, you can develop exciting new ideas. I talked a lot about writing in this post, but ChatGPT can help unclog marketing bottlenecks in customer service, research, data analysis, engagement, and planning, to name a few areas.

Resource that can help — This site catalogs unexpected and amazing uses of ChatGPT. You’ll learn something new here and maybe reimagine how you create content and tackle everyday marketing tasks!

And here is a very short and basic tutorial on Dall-E image generation.

BTW, the image at the top of the post today was created using the prompt: “friendly robot helping a smiling black woman who is working on a laptop computer, style of disney.”

I really like the image on this post and AI has helped me make this content more fun and interesting for you. In 10 seconds!

Final thoughts: The existential crisis presented by AI

I do not have all the answers to the existential crisis presented by AI. I have a feeling this is going to be a topic on this blog for a long time. As always, I may not be an expert, but I will take you along on my learning journey.

You might have noticed a new tag I used on the blog today that says “100% Human Content.” I’m trying it out as an assurance that everything on this blog was written by me. If I use AI, I will be transparent about it. I’ll eventually integrate AI content into my work (taking my own medicine!) once I get over the guilt of employing a machine to do my work.

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 at your company event or conference soon.

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

Illustration generated by MidJourney

The post How to deal with the existential crisis presented by AI appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

A new research report showed that 36 percent of American consumers have posted or created content in the past year. While the majority of creators do it for fun, a whopping 26 percent of them aspire to join the creator economy as a part-time or full-time job.

Content is the new hustle.

The creator economy gold rush is reminiscent of other dotcom bubbles, and it’s something I study closely because I’m part of it!

Part of the momentum for this career choice comes from a hype-drenched belief that Web3 technologies like creator coin economies and NFTs provide a transformational economic change for creators.

Is the creator economy a profound new opportunity … or a variation on a historic internet theme with definite economic limitations?

The answer to both questions is … YES. Let’s explore why today.

A common thread

In any era of history, to beat the odds and make money as a creator, you had to possess some combination of:

• Talent — Something people value.
• Presence — If people are unaware of you, your creations cannot move through the economy.
• Sustained creative output — To make money, you must keep creating.
• Sponsorship — A person, company, or audience to pay you.

You don’t need these factors in equal measure. There are many ways to succeed by pulling these four strings in various ways.

For example, you might have average talent but such an overwhelming presence that you can succeed. Winston Churchill was a good painter, but his fame as a statesman helped drive more than $2 million for one of his paintings. You might have no talent at all, but does it matter if you have just one rich sponsor who loves you?

Talent, presence, output, and sponsorship still form the boundaries of the creator economy no matter what happens with technology.

The creator economy today

Whether you were living in the 1800s, you’re a creator today, or you hope to be one in the future, you must possess some combination of these elements for success.

The primary difference between the creator economy today and the one of 200 years ago is the internet. This provides access to a global audience, connections to collaborators and ideas, and creative new ways to make money like crowdfunding and Patreon. Developments like NFTs and the metaverse will unleash even more creative potential and enable new business models.

So … is the creator economy of today something bold and new? Yes, yes, yes.

Is it easier to make a living this way? No, no, no …

You still have to fight through …

Supply and demand

America was very prosperous a hundred years ago. The 1920s was a great time to be a creator because there was plenty of money flowing around for books, art, music, and theater performances.

But certain creators and performers were elite because their combination of talent and presence rocketed them to the top. Money always follows the scarce and elite. And that won’t change.

Even with all the significant advantages of an internet-enabled creator, elite still matters.

The early internet was heralded as the savior of starving musicians. Theoretically, great artists would no longer be slaves to greedy record companies. Anybody could create an audience and make money directly on the web.

But that did not happen in any significant way. Even with unlimited access to a global audience, there are still a small number of elite stars who can fill a stadium and make millions. There are many more who will trudge around the country endlessly playing in bars, and still more writing songs in their basement for Patreon donations. Almost no artist has the power to monetize directly. Radiohead tried it a few years ago, and it did not go well.

“Elite” still impacts your income level whether you’re in a Web3 creator economy or not. Just because you call it Web3 doesn’t change the fundamental economics of supply and demand. You still have to be elite to make a decent living.

White hot creator economy

And that brings me to this important issue of supply. The biggest change to being a creator today compared to 100 years ago is the barrier to entry.

In 1920, almost nobody could follow a career path as a “creator.” I looked it up!  For fun, here are the top 10 careers from 100 years ago:

1. Dairy Farm worker
2. Clerk
3. Retail worker
4. Servant
5. Sales
6. Machinist
7. Carpenter
8. Textile worker
9. Teacher
10. Bookkeeper

To make it as a creator long ago, you had to find time to leave the farm or factory to take lessons in your craft, practice, and attract a financial supporter. Making money as a creator was a remote possibility because the barrier to entry was so high.

Today the entry barrier to the creator economy is almost zero. All you need is a smartphone to take lessons, practice, and find financial support.

The majority of content creators are Gen Z or millennials. These generations are also more engaged with the world of creators themselves, which may, in turn, influence their own content creation ambitions.

Most of the top Instagram or TikTok stars haven’t had any formal training in art, music, or dance. And yet many have entertained their way into seven-figure incomes by playing video games all day or doing make-up tutorials.

I’m not criticizing these folks at all. I admire their hard work, dedication, and innovation. I’m happy they have a chance to make money doing something they love.

But the technology enabling this opportunity also raises a new entry barrier: the supply of creators is exploding.

Although “creator” does not show up in the top 10 careers of today (yet), seemingly an entire generation wants to be one. 86 percent of American teens aspire to be a professional influencer or creator one day.

The economic reality

In summary, the internet and Web3 open up wonderful new opportunities for creators. But to make significant money, you still have to be elite, and that’s more difficult because of the low barrier to entry and sheer number of people who aspire to make a living as a creator.

My view: If this is your dream, go for it. Give it everything you’ve got. Live with no regrets.

But also realize that the hype about the creator economy, Web3, NFTs, and smart contracts doesn’t mean a path to success is any easier or assured.

Whether you want to be a star in the NBA, a famous singer, or a successful creator, elite talent still matters. The economics fame of don’t change.

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 at your company event or conference soon.

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

Top Image courtesy Unsplash.com; piano player is from Pexels.com

The post The creator economy is in hyperdrive. Is it time to climb aboard? appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

I’ve been immersed in the world of measurement and influencers since the beginning. I wrote the first book on the subject.

There has been a tremendous amount of progress in testing impact — a lot of money has been devoted to attribution models. But when it comes to finding relevant influencers, especially in the B2B space, it’s been disappointing. Today I will lament that we have made almost no progress in the last ten years.

Influence based on breadcrumbs

The first company to attempt assessing influencers was Klout. Around 2009, Joe Fernandez had his jaw wired shut after an operation and had a lot of time on his hands to watch how the emerging social media streams worked. He noticed that certain people could spark actions on the web better than others and wondered if there was a way to track it and assign influence value scores to certain individuals.

Joe hired a bunch of Ph.D. statisticians and social scientists and came up with a rudimentary system, scoring every person on social media from zero to 10.

The idea was met with outrage. How could Klout possibly measure a person’s influence? After all, they had no insight into our homes and workplaces!

But what the critics missed is that influence ONLINE comes from one thing: The ability to spread content and ideas to a relevant audience. If you look at this one slice of the world, Joe Fernandez was on to something. By analyzing the vast spider web of social media interactions, he could track how effectively content spreads. And that means a lot to brands seeking to spread content!

Klout’s use of social media “breadcrumbs” to assess influence was a blunt instrument, but it was a start. It highlighted tendencies and potential opportunities for brands to connect with the best information spreaders.

The problem is, the assessment of many digital influencers, especially in B2B, has not progressed.

Influence in a rut

A few days ago, one of the top platforms for assessing digital influencers made a splashy announcement about their innovations in measurement. I won’t mention the company … it’s not important.

But when you cut through the hype of the announcement, the basis of their measurement tool is still primarily follower counts and engagement levels on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Here we are, more than a decade past Klout’s early attempts at measurement, and the system is basically the same — and arguably much worse because in the early days, Klout also tapped into the data sets of YouTube, Facebook, and other platforms that have since pulled back on API access.

I am mystified that any company would still be offering such a blunt instrument, let alone be able to sell the service, after this length of time and so little meaningful progress on assessment.

What’s the problem here?

Ignoring true influence

On the social web, there is a continuum of influence.

Generally speaking, the lowest form of influence is social media engagement because these are weak relational links. When somebody engages with a post on Twitter or LinkedIn, it’s like a follower waving at you. They might be saying, “good job,” or maybe, “Hi there!” It doesn’t necessarily mean they will buy anything from you or ever see you again. And sadly, social media engagement can be easily gamed.

Although a weak signal of influence, follower numbers and social media engagement are important because they represent potential. A social stream is an opportunity to connect to relevant people who you can move into the second stage of influence — subscriber audience.

When people subscribe to your blog, podcast, or YouTube series, you achieve reliable reach. You’re no longer sending out messages into the wide ocean of a social media platform, hoping for a connection. These folks have opted-in to you. They’ve decided to follow what you have to say because they believe in you and they want your content.

A creator/influencer certainly has a tremendous amount of power over their subscribers/fans/audience.

The third and highest level of influence is community. Not only are people subscribing to your ideas, but they are also actively part of the process. A community collaborates, co-creates, and surrounds a creator with energy and ideas as a team.

Here’s the problem. The leading measurement platforms are stuck in a rut by obsessing on the lowest level of influence — social media engagement.

The next level measurement and influencers

Here’s my frustration. Nearly all the influence is happening in audiences and communities, and it’s not that hard to figure out.

Is it difficult to know that I have a blog? Is it hard to assess whether people are sharing or commenting on that blog?

Is it impossible to see that I have a podcast? Can you see reviews of the podcast? Can you see people discussing it online?

Does an influencer have a YouTube channel? It’s too bad YouTube hides all that information. Oh, wait. They don’t, you say? Right! Anybody can tell how many videos are posted and how many subscribers and views they have in a channel just by looking.

It’s just not hard.

An example: Noah Smith is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist and assistant professor of finance at Stony Brook University. He has 26,000 Substack subscribers paying $99/year for his newsletter on business and world events. He does not have a LinkedIn account. Should we overlook him as an influencer?

It takes more effort to acknowledge audience and community platforms to super-power an influencer grading system, but after more than a decade, isn’t it time to figure it out? Shouldn’t the industry demand to move beyond the breadcrumbs of influence offered to us by Twitter and LinkedIn?

The next problem

The influence measurement problem is about to become much worse.

Younger generations aren’t hanging out on Twitter or LinkedIn at all — the bread and butter of the B2B influencer crowd. They’re on Twitch, TikTok, Fortnite, Roblox, and hiding out on private messaging services. If you’re trying to find a B2B influencer under the age of 30, the current measurement platforms are totally useless.

The response

I asked the marketing leader of the company that made this under-whelming announcement for a response to my criticism. It’s not the first time I’ve presented these concerns to this company and its competitors.

She responded with a detailed message, saying:

• “We’re 100% with you,” and
• “It is absolutely one of our priorities to get better at capturing the communities and networks that influencers own themselves – i.e. email subscribers, podcasts etc. We are working away in the background to take these lists to another level.”
• She pointed to the manual work involved as a major obstacle.

I can understand that. But aren’t we overdue for one of these platforms to drill down to where influence is actually taking place in this digital world?

I need to acknowledge that I made some sweeping generalizations in this post to make my point and keep it short. There are exceptions to everything. It is possible to have a community on social media, you can have an audience better than a community, and there are wide variations in how influencers are assessed, for example.

I wrote this because I care about the marketing industry and want to encourage our company partners to do better. A lot better.

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.

Illustration courtesy of Unsplash.com

The post The long ugly road of measurement and influencers appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

I recently had the honor of giving a TEDx talk and it has just been posted to the main TED site. Many people wanted to see the presentation, so here it is!

The main idea of the speech — how to be relentlessly relevant in a fast-changing world — is inspired by my book “Cumulative Advantage,” but I tether this work to my personal experience and the fallout from the pandemic. The talk was very well-received and I hope you enjoy it! The video is about 15 minutes long …

If you can’t view the relentlessly relevant video above, you can find the video on this link.

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 create community.

The post How to be relentlessly relevant appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

Trader Joe’s is an iconic American business. It’s cult-like. I know people who will drive far out of their way to visit these stores. They are so popular they are nearly on the level of a local tourist attraction!

Here is a typical comment from my friend Sunshine Woodyard:

I’m obsessed with Trader Joe’s, I picked where to buy a house based on proximity to one.

I need to back up here and mention that Trader Joe’s is a grocery store. Research consistently shows that people hate going to grocery stores. It’s ranked right above going to the dentist. So this is a truly legendary brand.

I was doing research to figure out how Trader Joe’s achieved this rare status. How did they completely break the mold and make people feel like they belong to a grocery store?

So I read the founder’s autobiography Becoming Trader Joe to figure this out. What was the grand vision and strategy that created this historic level of success and customer intimacy?

I found the answer. And oh my, was I disappointed.

But there’s a good lesson ahead …

The icon, the disappointment

Trader Joe’s is a grocery chain that breaks almost every traditional retail convention. It’s hard to describe, so I asked some of my Facebook friends what they liked about it:

• Vast quick-cook ethnic options. There are entire Pinterest pages and blogs devoted to monthly finds, weekly meal planning using TJ ingredients and more! (Shannah Hayley)
• The size of their store is small enough that I don’t get lost and quickly finding the dozen products that I just can’t live without (Heather Heumann)
• Makes me feel like I can cook and hostess like a superstar (Catherine Mangan)
• They get great deals and pass the savings to customers. (Phil Mershon)
• Seems like every employee loves their job. If you ask where an item is, they’ll take you right over to it even if it’s across the store. They’ll also offer you ideas for new recipes (Tim Washer)
• I love TJ’s because of the selection of fun and interesting products you won’t find in a typical grocery store (Laura Poe)
• There is a simplicity to the place that is differentiating. I also love the spirit of discovery of new foods. (Frank Eliason)
• They gave me free flowers when I was having a particularly hard day (Carla Taylor)
• Good employer – salaries, benefits, etc. (Anne Saulovich)
• They hide stuffed animals and when you find them, you get a lollipop. My kids always looked forward to going with me because they had something to do  (Crystal Tosh)
• Lots of good frozen prepared foods for us single folks who don’t always want to go to a lot of trouble to cook just for ourselves (Lynn Thompson)
• Shopping there, I feel smarter, healthier, more adventurous, and worldly. (Charlie Wollborg)
• The prepared food isn’t full of trash chemicals and additives. It’s much closer to European food standards (Laura Pence Atencio)

… and I could go on. You get the idea that they have a lot going on here!

I expected to read this book and learn of an inspirational business vision from a remarkable founder. But that was not the case at all. I was disappointed on every page. Just about everything that created this successful company was an accident or luck …

• Founder Joe Coulombe made a decision to pay his employees high wages and benefits to avoid unionization.
• He originally operated a small chain of conventional stores. He was forced to innovate only because a national chain was going to wipe him out of business.
• A local farmer had too many eggs. So he approached Joe about dumping his inventory and selling it at a low price. This led to a long-term strategy of seeking low-cost, excess food inventories for his store as a unique selling proposition.
• Joe had the idea of offering unique, branded products when a cheesemaker noted that a waste material of the process was a whey-based butter. He could obtain the off-grade butter in bulk for very little money and brand it as a specialty product.
• He took advantage of a legal loophole and offered unique wine sales.

The strategy refrain that Joe repeats throughout the book is, “I made the right decisions for the wrong reasons.”

Perhaps the biggest stroke of luck was a changing world. The founder attributed the success of his quirky store to the GI Bill which enabled millions of veterans to get a college education and larger jets which dropped the cost of travel to Europe. Why? His products appealed to higher-educated people and consumers were becoming more adventurous in their diet due to foreign travel. His products and marketing took advantage of this demographic shift.

In the founder’s words “I found disruptions in the market and drove a truck right through them.”

And that is a great lesson for business success today, especially in a pandemic …

Cumulative Advantage at work

The weird success of Trader Joe’s is a perfect case study of how momentum works, as described by the research I highlighted in my book Cumulative Advantage.

A main idea in this book is that you don’t need a big college degree or a million dollars in the bank to create business momentum. Almost every successful business starts from something random, so success often stems from being aware of the opportunities being presented to you.

Like Joe. There was no strategy. He was driving his truck through opportunities as he met them.

In my book, I explain how:

• Nike started with an observation about making waffles at breakfast
• Zumba started when an aerobics instructor accidentally left his music at home
• Microsoft started because Bill Gates had access to early computer prototypes as a teenager
• Spanx started over frustration with underwear lines
• Twitter was on the brink of failure when an earthquake made it essential for communication
• My career took a new direction when I asked my boss if I could put an AOL subscription on my expense account, making me the first company employee with an internet account.

… and so on.

In fact, every successful person and business started through something random, a fact delightfully chronicled in the book The Click Moment by Frans Johansson.

While I was disappointed that my favorite grocery store stumbled into success through a continuous series of accidents, I should not have been surprised. Because that’s exactly how almost every great success occurs.

The lesson for you

A key idea in Trader Joe’s success is that momentum comes from the intersection between some initial advantage (it could be a skill, a resource, an idea, or even a bit of luck!) and some shift in the world — a fracture in the status quo.

• Cheap eggs propelled store success during a recession.
• More educated and well-traveled consumers were ready for a small store with quirky food products.
• Paying employees well led to loyalty and higher customer engagement that created differentiation in the bland grocery world.

This is how strategy and success work now. Finding a way to be relentlessly relevant in a constantly changing world.

The good news is that the pandemic is the biggest fracture in the status quo in history. Literally, everything is being reimagined and reinvented …

• how we work, where we work, when we work
• how we exercise, play, travel, and entertain ourselves
• how we cook and feed our families
• how we learn, teach, and connect

… to name a few.

Like Trader Joe’s you too can stumble into success if you’re aware of how your strengths, resources, and talents match up with changes going on in the world today.

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.

The post How you can stumble into business success like Trader Joe’s appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

I recently had an interesting question from an interviewer. Perhaps my answer can help you … 

You’ve worked with many renowned global clients over the years. What are the most common mistakes you see marketers make when planning and/or executing their strategies?

In most companies, marketing is iterative. We try to do a little better each year with our SEO, digital ads, content, etc. But our customers have taken a quantum leap away from us. They have the accumulated knowledge of the human race in the palm of their hands and they expect something more from companies and marketers today.

If companies don’t take time to look up from their routine, entrenched marketing practices, they are going to become irrelevant soon.

It doesn’t require a crystal ball to realize that the field of marketing will be unrecognizable two years from now, compared to where we are today.

Customers don’t want to be bothered, spammed, interrupted, or annoyed. They are immersed in a streaming media environment now where ads are rare or blocked. Instead of manipulating people, marketers need to come alongside customers to help them make money, save money, have a happier, healthier, more entertaining life … or whatever our customers need our companies to do for them in their moment of need.

A quantum leap

Staying in a routine trench of annual iteration is a path toward irrelevance. We need to embrace and master emerging ideas and customer needs, even if it seems like we’re not ready for it. Even if it seems terrifying.

We need to get out of that trench and take a quantum leap forward to keep up with customers and the culture. I think this requires these important activities:

1. Devote budget to experimentation

Change can be excruciating, especially if you’re moving away from familiar dashboards and marketing routines. To ease the pain, set aside at least 5 to 10 percent of your budget to experiment with these new technologies and practices.

2. Drive a culture of change

One great corporate leader I worked with set an annual performance goal for every employee — they had to show how they experimented with some new marketing idea every quarter of the year. They didn’t have to succeed, they didn’t have to show results — or even progress. But they had to experiment.

To create a true culture of change, the directive has to come from the top. There’s no such thing as a grassroots cultural change.

3. Double-down on personal growth

Get out of the day-to-day, lift your head up and learn about the changes happening in the world. Devote part of your marketing time and resources to learning, not iterating. Read, watch, listen and begin to master the new marketing channels coming at us. One option to consider is the Uprising event where a small group of marketing thought leaders are devoted to exploring the future of marketing together.

4. Put aside metrics (WHAT????)

You can keep up with marketing change and the pulse of culture, or you can measure. You probably can’t do both. That is a disturbing reality to me and my fellow measurement geeks!

I grew up in a slow-moving marketing world. It was easy and elegant to set one goal year after year and measure our steady progress on long-established dashboards.

But the fact is, if you wait to nail down measurement, you’ll miss opportunities due to the escalating rate of change in our world. This gets back to the idea of experimentation. Try new things, even if you can’t measure the results right away.

5. Start now

This very moment represents the slowest moment of change you will ever experience. The pace is just going to accelerate! So you really do not have a moment to lose. Even if you start your quantum leap future focus a few months ahead of competitors, it can make all the difference in the world.

Having a successful company and brand is an unending journey of being relevant. We can’t be relevant if we’re not embracing the new marketing realities emerging all around us.

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.

Illustration courtesy Unsplash.com

The post Is your marketing getting a little better each year? That’s not enough. appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.