What were the most popular blog posts of 2024?

This is more difficult to answer today than a few years ago because my posts are read in so many different places today. I don’t spend the time curating social media views across all the various channels (like Medium, Substack, and LinkedIn) but certainly can see when a post goes “viral.”

Here at least is an estimate of the most popular posts of 2024 based on post views.

1. How to Reimagine Universities for the AI Era

Although this post appeared just a few weeks ago, it was “boosted” by Medium and appeared on the front page of the platform’s website. There is some wild thinking here, and most people agreed with my view that colleges need a radical new start.

2. In Defense of Jaguar (I think I’m the Only One)

A post that caused a rumble, earning 17,000 views on LinkedIn. I almost didn’t comment on this car controversy, but so many people wrote to me to ask what I thought about it that I took the plunge.

This is a good example of “spiky” content. I posed a contrarian view, not to be contrarian but to expose a defensible argument.

3. The Real Reason Marketing Content is Getting Worse

The idea is that a creative dependency on technology limits people’s ability to innovate because they don’t know the craft. This hit a chord with people, resulting in hundreds of reader comments across the web.

4. The Biggest Threat to Free Speech and Democracy Isn’t Speech. It’s Amplification

There are so many arguments about protecting free speech and the limits of free speech but most people are missing the point entirely. The opportunity for vast amplification of any view was something the Founding Fathers never anticipated.

5. It’s Time to Create a Creator Guild

One of the major limits on AI progress is a lack of access to high quality content. I would happily turn over almost 20 years of content to my AI overlords for fair compensation. Wouldn’t you? Solves so many problems.

6. Ten Non-Obvious Social Media Trends

In my early days as a blogger, I commented on social media almost exclusively. I thought it would be fun to return to my roots and point to some trends that seem to be passing many people by.

7. How Blogging Changed My Life

2024 marked the 15th anniversary of my blog. I normally don’t dwell on the past but this was an opportunity to reflect on how far I’ve come as a blogger. While blogging might seem like the OG social media content, it is still as vital as ever and still growing.

8. Why AI Will Not Doom Marketing

Open AI founder Sam Altman blurted out that AI will easily and rapidly eliminate 95% of all marketing jobs. I don’t know AI, but I do know marketing and I had to point out why this is view is simply wrong.

9. How to be the Best Fake Possible

If I hear the word “authentic” one more time I think I’ll hurl. Do we really want authentic? It never crosses my mind when I watch a spectacular action movie created almost entirely by CGI. If I value spectacular in the real world, why not in the business world. Should we embrace the Era of Spectacular?

10. The Biggest Mistake Content Creators Make Today

This might seem like a click-bait headline, but it’s not. I’ve done hundreds of personal coaching calls, and 90% of the people I speak to have grotesquely sub-optimized their content because of this one mistake.

So that’s a wrap. I’ll add that my top five podcast episodes of the year were:

1. Why it was time to burn this community to the ground

2. Beyond Imposter Syndrome

3. Creating your signature story

4. What business are you in — really?

5. The inescapable role of humans in an AI world

If you’re a fan of the blog, I think you will love The Marketing Companion podcast! 

Thanks for being here, and here’s to a great 2025.

Need a keynote speaker about brand communities? 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

Illustrations courtesy MidJourney

The post The most popular blog posts of 2024 appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

On vacation in Italy, I visited a lovely wine shop in Florence. So of course, I wanted to talk to the owner about marketing (can’t help myself). The proprietor had a lovely place filled with antiques and art — such an interesting, visual environment! And yet, she wasn’t on Instagram. In fact, she didn’t use social media at all, a personal decision that certainly goes against the grain.

“Everyone tells me I should be posting,” she said. “But I don’t feel comfortable with it and would rather spend my time talking with customers.”

She spread her arms to indicate this sacred space where she sits in her shop, sipping wine with customers. “This is what I love about my business.”

Obviously, this anti-social media strategy has worked well. Her business has been growing for 18 years, built on her reputation of quality products and personal attention.

Sometimes, you can’t just listen to the gurus. Marketing is often a personal decision.

And I’d like you to consider this alternative thinking as a possible competitive advantage …

Marketing lemmings

The biggest problem with marketing, and especially social media marketing, is that “best practices” are so well known and so easily absorbed. Once a new competitive trick is discovered on a social platform, it spreads like wildfire and becomes part of everyone’s normal practice.

For example, the “shocked look” video thumbnail pioneered by Mr Beast:

Leads to this:

I’m not judging whether this is good or bad. It probably works on some level. But it all looks the SAME.

My point is that by going your own way, following your muse, and ignoring conventional wisdom, you can evolve into your own competitive advantage simply because when it’s YOU, it’s different.

Go your own way

I was an early adopter of social media marketing. In 2006, as part of my corporate marketing duties, I led an early social media team and started my own blog a few years later.

And I was a big rule-follower. I desperately tried to fit in and follow all the best practices of the day. I dutifully created my strategic, SEO-optimized content for my “ideal customer personas.” And two things happened.

First, nothing happened. Nobody was reading or commenting on my content.

Second, I became bored. What was I doing? Creating keyword-infused content for a made-up persona? Blah.

So I stopped.  And I started telling my own story, following my curiosity, expressing opinions (even when they went against the grain), and breaking the shackles of Google-driven content.

And something amazing happened.

When I went my own way, instead of finding my ideal audience, my ideal audience found me. And they were all over the world. When I decided to be a real person, real people responded back, and it changed my career.

There is no way this would have happened if I had stayed in the social media trough of best practices.

It was a powerful lesson, and since then, I’ve broken rules all along the way as I’ve written my books, created The Uprising, and established a speaking career. That personal decision to have your own little rebel yell doesn’t mean you’re reckless or offensive. But it requires courage to show up differently when boring is the path of least resistance.

The personal decision and marketing

Are you in a marketing trough? Are you so focused on what other people are doing that you’re overlooking your unique value and inherent creativity?

More importantly, are you happy and excited about your work, or are you becoming bored with all these rules, as I was?

Stop trying to game the system and start being unapologetically you. Because in the end, people don’t connect with keywords or personas. They connect with stories, passion, and real human beings who have something genuine to say.

There is a place for best practices, but don’t overlook the power of going your own way, especially when most marketing is so dull. There is tremendous pressure to do what everybody else is doing. It might seem scary not to follow the crowd. But that might be your most powerful and meaningful differentiator.

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

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustration courtesy of Austrian National Library and Unsplash.com

The post Sometimes, marketing comes down to a personal decision appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

A member of my RISE marketing community felt a bit stuck after blogging for a year. It occurred to me that I had not written about basic writing tips for many years, so let’s do that today.

Blogging still plays an important role in the digital marketing ecosystem, and it’s also a lot of fun. Here are some tips to re-energize your blog. Some are refreshers, some will be new to you …

1. Write “upside down,” meaning, tell the reader immediately what this story is about. Don’t make them work or they will leave. This is a non-obvious blogging tip because it is the opposite of what we’ve been taught in school — start with the introduction and work your way to the conclusion. Start your blog with the conclusion first.
2. Remove every word and sentence that doesn’t move the story along. Mark Twain famously quipped, “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” Remove the fluff!
3. Read it aloud. If your post doesn’t sound like your natural voice when you read it out loud, re-write it.
4. Add your own story. This is a noisy world (and AI is making it worse!) To stand out, you have to be original, and to be original, you really have just one choice: Add your own story, perspective, and passion to the post. There’s only one you. If you have the courage to show your heart, you’ll stand out.
5. Be spiky. Publish something that can be challenged. Don’t be controversial for the sake of it, but offer an opinion that’s debatable. I wrote about this in detail here. There is no better to re-energize your blog than stirring up a little sh@t.
6. Help, don’t sell. I know some gurus encourage you to have a call to action in every post, but I disagree. Why would I subscribe to content that just sells me something every time? Serve the reader.
7. Double down on quality. You can trick somebody into clicking a link, but you can’t trick them into reading it or subscribing. If you ask any creator what drives subscriptions, they’ll respond, “quality.” I don’t use AI to create my posts, but if you’re not a natural writer, use AI to brighten your content through better editing, tone, and style.
8. Don’t overlook headlines. The most important part of your content isn’t the content—it’s the headline. People will decide to click or not based on their first impression. Don’t make it an afterthought.
9. Stick to a lane. Determine the content that best supports your personal brand and your learning journey and focus there or you will confuse the reader.
10. There’s no great writing, only great re-writing.

Re-energize your blog and don’t quit

In my Personal Branding Master Class, I take participants on a deep dive into the role of content and the importance of consistency and patience. I thought I would end my post today with my favorite quote about blogging success.

Sisters Elsie Larson and Emma Chapman started the “A Beautiful Mess” blog in 2007. The blog covers home decor, crafts, recipes, and lifestyle tips. Today, they oversee a profitable media empire.

But their success never would have happened if they had not started the blog and kept going. This is the quote from Elsie Larson that I love:

“I built a readership over the course of many years. I focused on quality posts that take a lot of time to write and develop, being consistent (I’ve been posting almost every day for several years), and being myself. The blog evolves as I evolve; it’s slow and steady. Nothing happened overnight. I have never paid a penny to advertise ‘A Beautiful Mess;’ I just kept doing my best and a readership developed over the years. It’s the product of hard work, constant evaluation, and lots of love.”

That sums it up, folks. Quality, consistency, slow and steady. The winning formula to re-energize your blog.

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 Re-Energize Your Blog: 10 Tips You Didn’t See Coming appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

The topic for this blog post came to me in a dream. I woke up from my dream thinking, “Yes, it’s true. There really is one big mistake content creators make. I should tell others about it!”

I’m sorry this dream wasn’t more exciting or titillating. Maybe my other dreams will be a story for another day. Or not.

Before I reveal my dream-truth, I need to review a basic content marketing philosophy:

Content must be unleashed.

It doesn’t matter if you’re creating epic content or the best work of your lifetime if nobody sees it. The power in your content doesn’t from the content. It comes from the transmission of the content. We want our work to move, which leads to awareness, fans, subscribers and people who will buy things from us.

The biggest mistake content creators make

OK, let’s think this through.

You create great content. You post it everywhere. Somebody bites. They click on the link and what do they see when they arrive at your website?

A blog post? A video? A podcast episode?

Of course … but what else? If you’re like most people, the answer is … nothing. And this is the problem.

When I visit most blog posts or other web content, I can’t even tell who wrote it. I don’t know what this site is about. I don’t see a place to subscribe. I don’t see a place to share the content on social media if I like it. It’s a marketing dead end!

When people click on a link to your content, they don’t arrive at your home page. They arrive at your content. And if all you have on this page is your content, you’re missing a massive opportunity. In fact, this is by far the biggest mistake content creators make today.

In essence, your content page needs to be a mini-landing page for your business. You spend all this time bringing people to your business, but it’s not your business—it’s just a piece of content. They read it and leave. TRAGIC!

Here is your goal: Keep them on your website. You should put as much thought and design into your standard content page as your home page. The longer you keep them on the page, the bigger the chance they will subscribe to your content, share it, or even buy something from you. So don’t miss this opportunity.

Let’s learn how to do this …

The mini home page

If I were sitting with you over coffee, I would pull out my laptop and give you a demonstration. I would probably even buy you the coffee. But since we might be thousands of miles apart, I’ll walk you through it and owe you the coffee when we finally meet. Deal?

As I give you this lesson, it would be helpful to look at how I display my own work, the result of many years of testing. If you like, open up this blog post as you read the rest of my tutorial so you can visualize the lesson.

We’ll start at the top and learn how to make your content into a mini home page.

On my post, what’s the first thing you see under the headline? Social sharing buttons. I can’t believe how often I go to a site and have to work to figure out how to share the content.

Research shows your content will be shared 400% more if you simply add social sharing buttons. The total social shares displayed on my buttons isn’t accurate. It’s sort of a long story why they’re not, and it’s frustrating that nobody has worked that out, but put the buttons up there anyway. No excuses.

Next: An eye-catching graphic. If somebody sees your content shared on LinkedIn or Twitter, the first thing that grabs their attention is the graphic. Maybe you can stop them long enough to read the headline and get a click. The image that goes with your content is also an SEO boost because you can add meta tags to the photo to help Google figure out your content.

Let’s start looking at the right-hand column. You first see a call to action to spend time with me. Cool.

However, the next field, an invitation to subscribe, is the most essential item on the entire page. Why? Because a subscriber is opting in to you and what you do. They are volunteering to hear more. They are becoming members of your email list and possibly future customers.

You might be asking yourself, if the subscribe button is the most critical part of the page, why isn’t it at the top of the column? Heat map studies show that the top right corner of the web page is invisible to many people. I don’t know why, but the conclusion is consistent. So, the top of the column is sort of a throw-away item to get people to the next block which encourages them to subscribe.

As you go down the rest of the column, you’ll see:

• An opportunity to buy my book
• An invitation to attend my marketing retreat
• News about a class I am teaching
• An ability to search the site
• A little welcome message so people know who I am
• Boxes to search my posts by topic, date, or recent articles.

These are all things you might expect to see on a homepage. But most visitors who click on a link never see your home page. We need to fill that gap and give them lots of things to do. Remember, we want to keep them on the website.

Now let’s skip to the very bottom of the blog post. What have we here? A photo of me and further invitations to engage and connect. 

You might note that this page has lots of reasons to buy something from me, but I never sell within the content of the post. Some content gurus insist that you should sell something on every blog post, but I say phooey. I think that’s annoying and disrespectful. I wouldn’t want to subscribe to a constant sales pitch, would you?

But we’re not finished. Under my bio is another opportunity to share the post on social media because we want to get this content to move!

Next, there are a couple of prompts to send you to similar posts on my site. These are free WordPress apps that increase your time on my site by 18%. Huzzah!

And we wrap things up with another opportunity to connect with me on something like buying a book.

Just copy me

I just gave you some ideas for overcoming the biggest mistake content creators make today. My guess is that you have almost none of this on your page today. These ideas are easy to implement and can elevate your content immediately.

Everything I’ve covered here is free if you have a WordPress site. Nothing custom. Ask your web person to review my blog posts and copy my format. I’m happy to help you in that way.

It’s upsetting that so many people put their heart and soul into great content, only to have it languish on a boring, useless page.

I hope these ideas will give your content and business the boost they deserve.

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 The biggest mistake content creators make today appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

Early in my career, I learned a powerful lesson on how to battle boredom that changed my professional life forever. I hope this story will inspire you too.

How to battle boring

I began my career in corporate communications and had the amazing opportunity to have my own little company magazine. I did everything – writing, editing, design, and photography.

This dates me (painfully), but at this time in my career, a photographer still had to worry about f-stops and film speed. Digital wasn’t a thing—not even close. So, I needed to learn the craft.

I signed up for a weekend class with a master photographer who specialized in the type of corporate photography that was part of my job. He assembled a class of ten students in adjoining suites in a Dallas hotel, and this is where I learned how to battle boring forever.

The first day of class covered the basics of composition and lighting. The second day pushed us to put these lessons into action. The class was divided into two and we were challenged to create photographs that would make the other team laugh, ask questions, or feel curious.

Using Polaroid cameras to create our art on the spot, we were instructed to only use what we could find in the hotel rooms for props. With no budget or outside resources, we depended on the team’s collective imagination to create something out of nothing.

The teacher pushed us. “Never be average or predictable,” he said. “Use the team to create something I’ve never seen before.” We moved, changed, twisted, challenged, and pushed our meager resources until we had singularly unique and bold photographs.

The team trials became progressively more difficult, and near the end of the last day, the teacher issued a final assignment – create a photo that would shock the other team. Until then, creating a funny or puzzling photo had been fun and relatively easy. But shocking? Now we really had to reach … and remember we were stuck in that boring hotel room.

The Shock Doctrine

We did our best and worked to create a photo that we thought was shocking. But then he looked at both teams, shook his head, and said, “You’re not getting it. I mean, you need to create something really shocking. Go back to your rooms and create a photo that will knock our socks off. You have 20 minutes.”

By this point we were working well as a team and we were determined to produce something audacious. We emptied our pockets and backpacks. The women on our team emptied their purses on the floor. Was there anything we could work with?

One of the women had black mascara and started rubbing it on the back of her hand like shoe polish. Then the other woman took it and started rubbing it on her face until it was black as night.

Somebody else had a tiny flashlight. Another person had a mirror that we held up to her nose. We pulled up her blonde hair. At the end of 15 minutes, this was our photo:

Yes. We blew their socks off.

Decades later, I still see this photo as a great inspiration. If we could create this ghoulish, one-eyed monster in a dark Hilton hotel bathroom, it made me believe that I could make anything more remarkable. I could battle boring and win. I would never create dull content again.

I didn’t need money to push the limits, and I didn’t need a team of experts. I just had to be desperately dissatisfied with mediocrity.

Money is the bane of creativity

Later in my career, I worked at a plant location that was swimming in money. It was the most profitable plant in the system, and everyone just threw money at every problem. There was so much waste. And so much dull!

I realized that the most creative teams I worked with had the fewest resources. Money was the bane of creativity. It’s possible to battle boring, even with a small budget.

I’ve never met a fellow marketer who told me, “We have too much money in our budget.” No matter where you are in your career, you’ll face resource constraints. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be audacious. In fact, as long as you have access to a tube of mascara, you’ll probably be OK.

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

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

The post How to battle boring … even without a budget 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}.

“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}.

This week marks the tenth anniversary of the most famous blog post I’ve written, and arguably one of the most well-known blog posts in marketing history. I am not one to reminisce or grow crazy over anniversaries, but publishing this post ten years ago was a unique, unexpected life experience and cultural moment worthy of explanation.

Today, we’ll look at the impact of Content Shock and lessons from one of the most widely shared business blog posts in history.

The idea behind the blog post

It was the summer of 2013. I was on a plane to give a speech in Montreal, but I couldn’t relax because I was uneasy about my talk. The topic was familiar enough — social media and content marketing. But something was wrong.

Back then, producing corporate content was still a novel idea. Content fueled this concept of inbound marketing. Instead of cold-calling customers (outbound marketing) we could produce relevant content that would auto-magically bring leads to our website.

But it wasn’t working, at least not as easily as it had in the early days. The leading purveyor behind the idea, Hubspot, had never turned a profit (ironically its OUTBOUND sales costs were too high!). Niches were filling up with blog posts and podcasts and infographics competing for attention. We had to spend more of our budget on quality and promotion just to get a few views. And it was just getting worse.

The world was flooded with content, and the easy days of content marketing were coming to an end. On the plane to Montreal, I scribbled a note — “The world is in content shock.”

The premise

When I have a new idea for a book or blog post, I never go with it right away. I let it sit for months to make sure I’m right.

I didn’t publish the Content Shock post until January 06, 2014. I had seen enough by then to know I was right. It was simple economics: Any time there’s a huge surplus of a good, or a scarcity of a good, there has to be a response in the economic system. And we had a surplus of content!

Here’s a simple example. In the earliest days of TV, anybody could walk down to a studio and create a cooking show or a craft show. The entry barriers for success were low because the channel was so hungry for content. Similarly, in those early days, it was easy to advertise and support a show.

As television became more popular, the channels filled with content. Competitors appeared, not just on the local level, but nationally. Networks were created that attracted the best writers and the biggest stars. Content became more expensive to produce and sponsor.

Television entered a never-ending content arms race. You can still see it happening today. An episode of The Mandalorian cost a staggering $15 million to produce. A few years later, Wanda Vision cost $28 million per episode. The Lord of the Rings TV series cost $60 million per episode.

And so it goes.

This is exactly what is happening on Facebook. On Instagram. On Tik Tok. On every place we publish, whether it is B2B or B2C.

And so, I decided to write about this pattern. Content marketing was moving into a new phase, and it wasn’t going to be easy.

The outfall

Today, this idea of Content Shock is taken for granted. Of course if there is more competition, it becomes more difficult and expensive to compete. In fact, it becomes impossible for some.

While I knew this idea was true, I nonetheless sensed it would not go over well with the people in the industry actually selling content marketing as a red-hot, can’t-fail idea.

The post attracted thousands of comments — more like long conversations! To my surprise, about 95% of the comments were positive and suggested that I had tapped into a market reality, like this one from marketing expert Doug Kessler:

And yet, my blog post was characterized as “controversial.” If 95% of the people agreed with me, why would it be controversial? As I explained to my wife, if 95% of the people in our country agreed with something but the president disagreed, it would be controversial.

In this case, almost every content marketing thought leader took aim at me.  I was fine with it. I have a thick skin and enjoyed the great debate. That’s how we grow. But there was one comment I’ll never forget …

The laugh

The commentary didn’t end at my blog. My post sent a ripple of conversation into seemingly every blog, podcast, and video in the marketing industry. It was great that a professional debate was happening … with one exception.

On a well-known podcast, one of the hosts was asked whether my article had any legitimacy. He paused … and then laughed. “NO!” he said emphatically. He went on to describe the practice of content marketing as having unlimited potential. There was no concern about content saturation or the economic viability of content marekting, he claimed.

In my 15 years of blogging, this is the only comment that ever truly, deeply pissed me off. It wasn’t because he disagreed with me. It was because this was a respected voice acting as a charlatan to protect his own business interests. He was lying to an audience I cared about.

This comment was the primary reason I wrote The Content Code book. I needed to insert some rational truth into the content marketing madness. The premise of the book: “The economic value of content that is not seen and shared is zero. Here is a plan to ignite your content in an era of Content Shock.”

The laugh launched a book. And I’m still a little pissed : )

The legacy of a blog post

The Content Shock post generated tens of thousands of comments all over the web. For three solid weeks, I spent almost every hour of the day responding to comments. An important point — this most viral of posts had no measurable impact on my business. It did not even result in a meaningful boost in new subscribers. Goes to show that “Viral” is an overrated goal.

Hundreds of blog posts have been written about the original post. Thousands more linked to the article. I continue to get links to that post every week. “Content Shock” is still among the top 10 posts on my site every week, 10 years later!

Over time, the industry adopted the term as a way to describe the overwhelming competition in a world saturated with content. It has been featured in books, conferences, and speeches around the world. I’ve had people describe Content Shock to me, not realizing I was the one who came up with the term.

Two years after I wrote the post, Buzz Sumo did an analysis of marketing content trends, showing that content saturation was eating into the success of some of the biggest sites in the industry like Copyblogger and Moz. Founder Steve Rayson stated that “content shock is here.”

Battling the difficult economics of content saturation is a fact of life today in the marketing world!

Spiky content

Why did this post go viral? It was timely, it was relevant. But it was also spiky.

In my Personal Branding Master Class, I teach about the importance of “spiky content,” a phrase coined by Wes Kao. Spiky content provides a bold point of view that cuts through the clutter. It goes like this:

1. A spiky point of view can be debated.

2. A spiky point of view isn’t controversial for the sake of it.

3. A spiky point of view teaches your audience something relevant they don’t already know.

4. A spiky point of view is rooted in evidence, but it doesn’t have to be a proven fact or universal truth.

5. A spiky point of view requires conviction. 

“Content Shock” is a great spiky case study!

When I wrote this post, did I know I was absolutely right? I thought so, but there was no way to know for sure. The argument was built on evidence, but of course, it could be debated. And I wasn’t taking a stand to start a fight. I thought about this idea for six months before publishing. I wrote this post because I’m passionate about marketing, and I care about its future.

If you care about something, try creating some spiky content of your own. It’s really the only way to stand out today.

The future, the solution

After the initial post, I had another insight about Content Shock. It’s not just a trend. It’s a pattern (I explained this here). Every channel eventually fills with content, driving up the cost to compete. It’s a repeating pattern.

I wrote several follow-up posts, including one framing Content Shock as the most important content marketing strategy, instead of being a problem.

If Content Shock was becoming an issue in 2014, you can only imagine what is happening today in a world overtaken by AI. Some project that in a year or two, 95% of the content on the web will be created by bots. Bots don’t sleep, they don’t get writer’s block. Their ability to churn out content is infinite.

One of the counterarguments to Content Shock was that the world wasn’t being saturated with content; it was being saturated with bad content, so true artists still had a chance. Perhaps that was valid for a time, but most niches are filled with great people doing great work, or AI bots that are not far behind. The world is filled with so much great content, all of it vying for our attention.

Content Shock is here to stay.

I think there are two solutions to Content Shock.

The most common path is the inevitable arms race. Just look at what is happening in the battle between Netflix, Apple, and other streaming services. The demand for quality content, and the cost to produce that content, goes up, up, up. That is the inevitable pattern in every content niche.

There is another solution. What if you cared for the content and even more for the person or brand producing it?

Why are you reading this today? If you’ve made it this far, it’s because you’re interested in the topic. But maybe you subscribed to this blog in the first place because you believe in me. Maybe you will share this post on LinkedIn because you consider me a thought leader, or even a friend. The content matters and cuts through because I matter to you as a person.

This is a solution available to any business of any size, and it’s why I shout from the rooftops every day that you MUST be working on your personal brand.

I don’t have the resources to compete with the biggest media sites and cut through the Content Shock. You probably don’t either. But you can be the most human company in your niche and nurture an audience who loves you as a person.

Thanks for obliging me this Content Shock retrospective. It was a weird time in my life, but overall, it produced positive results and I’m proud of the blog post.

Go forth and publish some spiky content! Thanks for being here and supporting me through these many years.

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 Blog Post That Shocked the World appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

This continues a tradition of highlighting my top posts of the year, as determined by the number of your page views. Essentially, this is the “greatest hits” list of the best blog posts of 2023 as determined by you!

This represented Year 14 of the {grow} blog, and I think it was one of the strongest years ever. I had a little more breathing room this year to relax and think things through. Appropriately, the big themes of the year were AI and Gen Z, and that was reflected in the top posts. I hope you find a few new posts to read or re-read if you’ve been a friend of the blog for some time!

How to deal with the existential threat of AI

The theme of {grow} has always been the intersection of marketing, strategy, and humanity. Looking at that intersection has never been more important — AI is nipping at the heels of our skill sets, careers, and business models. This blunt and honest post from January kicked off a major theme of my work in 2023.

Beyond the Basics: 20 Non-Obvious Uses of ChatGPT for Marketing

This was among the most popular posts in the history of my business. The depth and variety of the post was enabled through a collaboration with the marketing experts in my RISE community. It’s a fun romp through the possibilities of AI!

Six new ideas on community-based marketing

Early in 2023, I published a book that LinkedIn described as “the foundational work on brand-based marketing:” Belonging to the Brand. I believe this is a key part of the future of marketing, and I continue to be inspired by how this idea is moving forward! Some wonderful new ideas in this post!

How to design an AI marketing strategy

An in-depth and thorough piece that approached the topic from a new angle.

This post went viral, somewhat to my surprise, because it was a pretty advanced topic. I have not used AI to actually write blog posts yet (and probably never will), but it has been a big aid in research, especially for this post.

Why Threads won’t work without Gen Z

In my Personal Branding Master Class, I teach about the singular value of spiky content. This is content based on an opinion that is based in fact, yet debatable. This is a perfect example. I connected the dots between Threads and the Google Plus failure and predicted that Threads wouldn’t work for the same reasons.

Am I right? Time will tell, but this post sparked a wild debate.

The surprising impact of word-of-mouth marketing in a digital age

I think word-of-mouth marketing is a vastly overlooked part of marketing. It’s also so misunderstood. I’m so happy this post took off. We need to be thinking more about WOMM going forward.

This post featured Ed Keller, the father of word-of-mouth marketing. Another key research piece from Ed — estimating the size of the creator economy — was featured here.

When do you and ChatGPT cross the Milli Vanilli Line?

This was one of my favorite posts of the year. It was such a fun and important idea. How much can you use AI before you become a cheat? I think this is a moving target and a topic of ongoing debate, especially in academic circles.

I never thought I would use the term Milli Vanilli in a blog post headline!

Protecting Your Content From AI: A Contrarian View

I dove right into the hornet’s nest on this one. In this moment, the biggest debate in the tech world was privacy concerns. I made the point that I was actually getting business from ChatGPT, but how would it know about me if I didn’t expose my content. If we don’t protect our content from Google, why would we protect our content from ChatGPT?

I’m not dismissing the concerns, just providing a different business point of view.

Who’s responsible for social media addiction? Me and you.

I’ve written more than 3,000 blog posts in my life, and this one touched a nerve like very few before it. I am sickened by the swell-documented social media manipulation of our children. It is making our society sick. But if you follow the money, it leads right back to the marketing profession. One person responded to this post: “I just can’t do this any more.” Let’s hope it started a conversation.

Another post from the year that had a deep emotional reaction was my view on the impossible task of “keeping up.” We are in a time-space compression.

Why you need to ditch LinkedIn as your content platform

One of my more recent posts, which explained some basic content marketing truths.

A lesson for me is that it I need to occasionally re-visit some basic marketing truths. Despite the rock-solid common sense of the post, it pissed some people off — the people selling LinkedIn services, of course. This didn’t bother me a bit. Almost everyone saw the truth in this post. Somebody needs to be telling the truth.

The best podcast episodes

Before I conclude this summary post, I also wanted to put in a plug for The Marketing Companion podcast. We crossed the line of a decade on the air and I am immensely proud of this work. The newest iteration of the show features six rotating co-hosts spinning up lively and timely topics. Here are the five most popular episodes of the year:

1. Diving into the bizarre and secret world of luxury brand marketing
2. Whatever happened to Web3?
3. Gen Z exposed
4. Master the art of business narrative
5. The hierarchy of AI-generated content: Where humans thrive

Thanks for being here and encouraging me on this journey. The marketing world is endlessly fascinating and we’ve just started exploring it.

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. I

mage courtesy MidJourney

The post The best blog posts of 2023 appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.