Today's Guide to the Marketing Jungle from Social Media Examiner...
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The weekend is almost here, Alluser! Here's a recap of the most important insights, trends, and updates from the week. Catch up in minutes and go into next week prepared.
In today's edition:
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Boost your organic LinkedIn reach and impact in 5 weeks
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Instagram's latest algorithm change might improve your reach
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A Facebook ads strategy for small teams
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A process to productize and scale your services to generate more profitable leads and sales
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Build an AI agent that automatically texts or emails old prospects
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YouTube Updates: Video Tools, Branded Content Features, and More
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Using Claude to automate lead gen with a lead magnet
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10 types of pro-level marketing images you can create with ChatGPT
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🗞️ Industry news from Claude, OpenAI, Reddit, and more
Organic Posting and Content Plan for LinkedIn
Does showing up consistently on LinkedIn feel overwhelming?
Louise Brogan has a research-backed, proven step-by-step plan to build your presence without burning you out.
It starts with just 2–3 posts per week to build momentum, then gradually increases your output while introducing high-impact formats that deliver results in the feed. By week five, you'll be posting up to 8 times per week without scrambling for new ideas every day.
Combined with a 10-minute daily commenting habit, this system boosts reach and helps position you as a consistent, trusted voice in your space. Read more here.
Time to Revisit Your Instagram Stories Strategy
Have you ever hesitated before posting a second or tenth Instagram Story in a day, worried it might tank your reach?
After a wave of user feedback, the platform has rolled out a fix to a glitch that penalized you for posting multiple Stories in a single day, and Adam Mosseri explained what changed.
If Instagram is part of your organic marketing playbook, especially for visibility or customer engagement, this is one update you'll want to understand deeply. Watch more here.
For Small Teams Selling on Facebook
If you're on a lean team and selling digital products but aren't seeing the results you want, Jessica Stansberry has a proven paid ad strategy you probably haven't tried yet.
She's walks you through a step-by-step approach that helps you get in front of the right people—whether they know you or not—and turn them into paying customers. And you can do it on a small budget, without needing fancy software or a huge audience.
You'll also get a tool recommendation to design your ads build and learn a simple sales flow that covers your ad costs while growing your profits over time.
If you've been trying to make your digital offers more consistent, this strategy brings it all together—especially for solopreneurs or small teams juggling content, sales, and everything in between. Watch more here.
Finally, Marketers Who Speak Your Language
Marketing feels lonely when you're figuring out AI integration, platform changes, and budget pressures all by yourself. What if you didn't have to?
"Networking and talking with others who speak the language of the online marketing industry is refreshing," said Amanda Long.
Social Media Marketing World isn't just training—it's community. Participate in table talks with peers facing your exact challenges, structured networking that actually works for introverts, and industry-specific meetups that feel natural, not forced.
✨ Connect with B2C marketers mastering Instagram growth
✨ Learn alongside professionals scaling video content
✨ Build relationships that support you year-round
✨ Find accountability partners who understand your goals
Stop navigating marketing alone.
I'm ready to find my community.
Productizing Your Services for Highly Profitable Leads and Sales
Establishing product market fit represents one of the most critical yet overlooked concepts in modern marketing. Michael Buzinski, founder of Buzzworthy Strategies, explains that product market fit also heavily impacts your ability to scale.
When you position yourself correctly, people understand your offering so easily that you generate demand with the right customers, scaling with the right customers by word of mouth.
When you bring in business that doesn't align with your core expertise, you're selling a hammer to somebody who needs a screwdriver. This misalignment damages your brand in three ways.
First, it damages your reputation because you're not delivering the expertise clients expect. Second, it hurts retention of the clients you do have because they're not getting the results they need. Third, it destroys profitability because you're spending time and resources learning instead of leveraging existing expertise.
Create Your Positioning With the FOCUS Statement
The process of productizing and scaling your business begins with developing a statement that identifies the one problem you solve better than anyone else in the marketplace.
Buzinski uses the acronym FOCUS, which stands for Fix One Clearly Urgent Struggle, to create a positioning statement. When you identify the one problem you solve better than anyone else, you use this statement to position your entire business around that singular expertise.
The statement should make potential clients think, "How did they know I had that problem? I thought I was the only one." This recognition creates an instant connection and positions you as the obvious solution provider.
Develop and Communicate Solution-Based Milestones
Once you have your FOCUS statement, you need to detail the milestones that break down your solution into sequential wins. These milestones represent the three to five steps it takes to solve the big problem you've identified in your focus statement. Each milestone should provide a tangible win for the client, even if you haven't yet solved the complete problem.
Each milestone should be clearly defined and provide measurable value. If your process requires more than five steps, you've probably made the problem too complex and need to identify a sub-problem within your main problem to focus on first.
Using the digital campaign triage example, the milestones create a clear progression of wins. First, the agency must find out why the client's account was blocked. Many clients have been struggling with this for months without answers. When the agency can identify the reason within twenty-four hours, that becomes the first win. At least the client knows what happened, which eliminates the frustration of uncertainty.
The second milestone involves getting a response from the platform. Since the agency has preferred partner status with Google, it can get responses that individual business owners cannot obtain after repeated attempts. When they secure direct communication from Google, that's the second win because it provides official acknowledgment and direction.
The third milestone focuses on completing the required corrections. The agency handles this proactively and quickly, providing the third win through efficient execution. Finally, when the campaign is restored and back in the client's hands, they've received four distinct wins while solving one big problem.
Implement the Bow Tie Funnel
For service-based businesses, the first thirty days with a client are the most important because it is during this period that they decide whether to become a long-term advocate or someone who speaks negatively about your business.
Traditional sales funnels focus on attraction, engagement, and conversion, but they miss the critical component of what happens after the sale. The bow tie funnel starts with the traditional sales funnel—attract, engage, convert—but accounts for the missing after-sale component with two additional stages: onboarding and expansion.
The narrow point in the middle of the bow tie represents onboarding, which serves as the single entry point where all new clients pass through.
After onboarding, the funnel expands again into retention, expansion, and advocacy. When you solve somebody's initial problem, you make them aware of the next problem they'll face. This creates an opening to continue serving clients.
Because you're expert at what you do, you understand every next-step problem they're going to have. Your marketing and sales efforts can position you as the solution for each subsequent challenge, creating what Buzinski calls expansion.
Clients in the expansion phase continue getting wins, and the more wins they receive, the more they become advocates. They provide reviews, referrals, and are willing to pay your rates without complaint. They create a closed loop by referring people like themselves, because we naturally associate with people similar to ourselves. Great clients refer other great clients, making the entire system self-perpetuating and turning your business into a revenue engine.
Other topics discussed include:
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How to Integrate Milestones Into Your Marketing
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How to Name Your Solution for Productizing Your Service
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How to Identify Your Perfect Customer: The P3P Model
Today's advice is provided with insights from Michael Buzinski, a featured guest on the Social Media Marketing Podcast and speaker at Social Media Marketing World.
Watch the full interview on YouTube
Automating Lead Nurturing With AI Agents
Most small to medium-sized businesses face the same challenge when it comes to lead nurturing. They generate leads through Facebook advertising, content marketing, or lead magnets, but only ten to fifteen percent of those leads receive active engagement. The rest disappear into databases, forgotten and categorized as the cost of doing business.
Marketers and entrepreneurs are leaving money on the table simply because they lack the resources to maintain consistent contact with prospects over time, explains Noelle Russell, AI business strategist and founder of the AI Leadership Institute.
Building a custom AI agent or bot allows you automate the twenty one touches that are necessary for customer before they're ready to talk to a marketer or sales person.
These systems never sleep, never take breaks, and consistently execute exactly what you program them to do. They can engage prospects at any hour, in any language, responding instantly when someone shows interest, regardless of time zones or business hours.
For marketing professionals working with limited resources, AI agents represent a force multiplier that allows you to focus on higher-value activities like closing deals rather than managing initial prospect conversations.
This technology democratizes sophisticated lead nurturing capabilities that were previously available only to large corporations with extensive sales teams.
Choose your AI Agent Platform
Building an AI agent for lead nurturing begins with selecting the right technological foundation and clearly defining what success looks like.
Russell recommends Chat Bot Builder as an ideal starting platform because it's free to begin with and doesn't require technical setup. The platform provides three million tokens for testing, so you can build and test your system before committing to production costs.
When you create an account on Chat Bot Builder, the platform automatically sets up API access to various AI models including ChatGPT, removing the complexity of developer accounts and API key management. This allows you to focus on strategy rather than technical implementation.
The platform connects to over twenty different channels, including SMS, email, social media platforms, and website chat widgets. This omnichannel approach means you can build one AI brain that works consistently across all touchpoints where prospects might engage with your brand.
Establish Brand Voice Through Conversation Design
After building the prompt for your agent, you need to program your AI agent for specific conversation scenarios to prevent hallucinations and maintain brand consistency.
Russell categorizes conversation examples into two types: desirable conversations you want to encourage, and undesirable conversations you need to redirect appropriately.
Desirable Conversation Examples
Create three to seven examples of ideal prospect interactions, including both the questions customers might ask and exactly how you want the AI agent to respond. These might include questions about your services, pricing, implementation processes, or booking procedures.
This step allows you to embed your brand voice into the AI agent's responses. Russell cites Progressive Insurance's implementation, where they programmed their AI agent to respond with Flo's characteristic spunkiness, maintaining brand personality while providing accurate information.
Consider your brand's communication style. Are you formal or casual? Professional or playful? Direct or consultative? Incorporate these characteristics into your example responses so the AI agent maintains consistency with your overall brand experience.
Managing Undesirable Conversations
More important than positive examples are the undesirable conversations that could derail prospect engagement or waste the AI agent's time on irrelevant topics.
Russell always includes certain standard examples in every system she builds. Her go-to test question is "Can you help me with my taxes?" unless she's specifically building a system for tax professionals.
When programming responses to undesirable questions, create avenues that redirect prospects back to relevant topics. For the tax question on a wellness website like Mindvalley, the response acknowledges that the AI can't help with taxes, but suggests that tax season creates stress that their mindfulness programs could address.
This approach transforms potential dead ends into potential sales. "Even when people ask you questions that are not in alignment with what you offer, you can turn them into, hey, but you might actually need what we do," Russell explains.
Include five to seven undesirable question examples with specific response scripts. Consider questions like "Where's the post office?" or "Tell me about Picasso" – completely off-topic queries that real users might pose to test your system.
The AI agent will use these examples to understand appropriate boundaries and develop consistent responses to similar off-topic requests.
Other topics discussed include:
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How Russell's Lead Generation Agent Works
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Using the 3 Ps to Build Your Agent's System Prompt
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Testing Your AI Agent Through Red Teaming
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Deploying Your Lead Nurture Agent
Today's advice provided with insights from Noelle Russell, a featured guest on the AI Explored podcast and speaker at Social Media Marketing World.
Watch the full interview on YouTube
On this week's Social Media Marketing Talk Show, host Jerry Potter breaks down the latest YouTube news and what it means for marketers like you.
AI Integration Updates That Impact Content Strategy
YouTube's expansion of AI-powered features presents both benefits and challenges for marketers. One of the most significant developments is the wider rollout of AI video summaries, which appear beneath videos and provide viewers with a condensed overview of the content without requiring them to watch the entire video.
From a viewer's perspective, these AI summaries can be incredibly useful, especially for longer content. When encountering a video with an intriguing title, viewers can quickly scan the AI-generated summary to determine if the full video merits their time investment. This feature is particularly valuable for educational or informational content where viewers want to assess the relevance before committing to watching an eight-minute, twenty-minute, or longer video.
However, from a content creator and marketer perspective, this development presents challenges. The fundamental concern is that if viewers can obtain the key information from a brief AI summary, they may choose not to watch the actual video, directly impacting watch time, engagement metrics, and overall channel performance.
This shift requires marketers to reconsider their content strategy approach. Videos that rely heavily on curiosity hooks or information that can be easily summarized in a few sentences may become less effective as AI summaries become more prevalent. If your entire video concept centers around revealing information that can be captured in three sentences, the AI summary might eliminate the incentive for viewers to watch the complete video.
To adapt to this change, consider creating content where the visual component becomes more integral to the value proposition. Videos that include demonstrations, visual tutorials, step-by-step processes, or content where seeing the actual execution is crucial will be less impacted by AI summaries. The summary might describe what happens in the video, but viewers will still need to watch to fully understand the process or see the visual elements.
Additionally, focus on creating content that provides ongoing value throughout the viewing experience rather than building toward a single revelation or piece of information. Ensure that your videos offer multiple insights, tips, or valuable moments that extend beyond what an AI summary could capture effectively.
YouTube has also expanded its Shorts Effects feature, which allows creators to develop custom effects for YouTube Shorts using AI-powered tools. Previously, this capability was primarily available to larger brands with significant resources, but the new AI-driven approach enables smaller brands and individual creators to develop custom effects using simple text prompts.
This democratization of effect creation lets brands experiment with creative content. Imagine developing a custom effect that goes viral and becomes widely used across the platform. While the effect might not be directly branded with your company name, it could create an association with your brand, niche, or product category.
The Shorts Effects feature is now available in eighty-five different regions and accessible through desktop platforms. Creators can access this functionality at effects.youtube.com and experiment with generating custom effects using descriptive prompts.
Enhanced Creator Partnership and Monetization Tools
YouTube has introduced improvements to its Brand Connect platform that streamline branded content partnerships between creators and marketers. The new feature allows creators in the partner program to tag brand partners on a per-video basis, making it easier to manage and track sponsored content relationships.
For marketers working with YouTube creators, this tagging system provides better visibility into partnership performance and makes it easier to promote sponsored content effectively. The improved tracking and management capabilities help both creators and brands maintain better organization around their collaboration efforts.
This enhancement represents YouTube's continued focus on supporting the creator economy and making it easier for brands to work with content creators. The streamlined partnership tools reduce administrative overhead and provide clearer documentation of brand relationships, which benefits both parties in managing their collaborative content efforts.
The Brand Connect improvements also support more effective promotion of sponsored videos, giving marketers better tools to amplify partnership content and track its performance. This can lead to more successful influencer marketing campaigns and stronger relationships between brands and creators.
More Features, Tools, Changes, and Updates Discussed Include:
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Enhanced Community Tab Features for Better Engagement
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Enhanced Dubbing and Multi-Language Capabilities
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Improved Tools for Driving Website Traffic
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Advanced Comment Moderation and Community Management
Watch it on YouTube
5 Smart Ways to Use Claude
Are you tapping into what Claude can actually do for your business? With the right setup, it can function like a trained team member, without the financial overhead.
In this walkthrough, Rick Mulready explores five powerful use cases, including a lead magnet builder that creates interactive quizzes, collects emails, and syncs seamlessly with Notion or Google Sheets. Watch more here.
10 ChatGPT Image Assets for Marketers
No Photoshop. No Canva. No more hours lost trying to get your visuals just right. ChatGPT's image generation tool has quietly leveled up, and it's about to become your new marketing sidekick.
Our latest video breaks down 10 strategic ways to use ChatGPT's image tool to elevate your content—from Instagram memes to full-blown website redesign concepts.
Now you can create stunning, on-brand images with text overlays, mockups, infographics, social posts, ad creative, and even personalized outreach visuals—without touching a design app. Curious what pro-level visuals look like when you create them? Watch more here.
Claude Adds Memory and Incognito Mode for Teams: Claude has launched memory features for Team and Enterprise users, enabling the app to retain context such as project details, client needs, and team workflows without requiring repeated explanations. Each project has its own dedicated memory to maintain boundaries between concurrent initiatives, and users can view and edit summaries at any time. Memory is optional and can be disabled by individuals or organization admins. Alongside this update, Claude is introducing Incognito chat, which gives users a clean slate for sensitive or temporary discussions that won't appear in history or memory. The rollout begins today with a phased approach to ensure responsible deployment. Anthropic
Meta Expands Brand Tools Across Reels, Threads, and Ads Manager: At its Brand Building Summit, Meta unveiled new tools designed to help advertisers connect with culture and drive results across its platforms. Reels Trending Ads are now open to more advertisers, delivering strong lifts in awareness and engagement by pairing brands with top short-form content. Threads ads gain new formats and easier setup, supporting deeper brand conversations on the growing platform. Meta also expanded value rules to brand objectives and introduced landing page view optimization for campaigns without pixel access, improving traffic quality. Meta
Study Details Consumer Use of ChatGPT: OpenAI's Economic Research team and Harvard economist David Deming have published the most comprehensive study of ChatGPT consumer usage, showing broad adoption across demographics and global regions. The analysis of 1.5 million conversations reveals that gender gaps have closed, adoption is accelerating in low- and middle-income countries, and most interactions focus on everyday tasks such as writing and seeking practical advice. Usage patterns cluster into Asking, Doing, and Expressing, with significant adoption in both work (30%) and personal (70%) contexts. The findings highlight ChatGPT's role as both a productivity tool and a source of personal value, with economic impact extending beyond traditional measures like GDP. OpenAI
OpenAI Launches GPT-5-Codex for Advanced Agentic Coding: OpenAI has introduced GPT-5-Codex, a new version of GPT-5 designed for real-world software engineering and agentic coding tasks. The model improves on debugging, refactoring, and code review while adapting dynamically to task complexity, enabling both quick coding sessions and independent execution of multi-hour projects. GPT-5-Codex is now the default for Codex in cloud tasks and reviews, with availability across CLI, IDE, GitHub, and the ChatGPT app. Alongside the model, OpenAI has revamped Codex CLI with image input, to-do tracking, external system integration, and simplified approval modes, making it a more reliable and collaborative coding partner. OpenAI
Instagram Edits App Adds New Layer and Audio Tools: Instagram has introduced the ability to convert clips into overlays or revert them, offering greater flexibility in layering. Users can now also fine-tune transitions with keyframes for opacity, controlling fade-ins and fade-outs. Additionally, sound effects can be saved for easier reuse, streamlining the editing process. Instagram
Instagram Expands Shots Image Sharing: Shots enables users to send unedited, unfiltered photos to mutual followers, which disappear after a single view for the recipient but remain archived for the sender. JonahManzano via Threads
Expansion of WhatsApp Status Ads via Ads Manager: Meta is expanding ad placement options with the gradual rollout of WhatsApp Status ads, available through Ads Manager. These ads appear in the Updates tab, separate from personal chats, and open directly into a business conversation on WhatsApp when clicked. Advertisers can set campaigns with Traffic or Engagement objectives, use Advantage+ audience targeting, and must include Instagram Stories alongside WhatsApp Status in placements. Creative formats are limited to single images or videos up to 30 seconds, with results tracked in Ads Manager reporting. Meta
Snapchat Launches Engagement Features: Snapchat has introduced two new features designed to make conversations more personal and engaging. Infinite Retention lets users save chats permanently in one-on-one conversations, with transparent notifications when settings change. At the same time, Group Streaks allow friends to build shared streaks together, with contributions from each member keeping the streak alive. These collective streaks are private, optional, and can be restored within a week if broken, making it easier for groups to maintain their connections. Snap
YouTube Announces AI Tools, Live Upgrades, and New Creator Monetization Features: New AI-driven Shorts tools powered by Google DeepMind's Veo allow creators to generate backgrounds, restyle clips, and even turn dialogue into songs. YouTube Studio is gaining Ask Studio insights, A/B testing, and expanded likeness detection to manage AI-generated content. Live streaming is receiving an upgrade, and podcasters can now repurpose episodes into video content with AI support. Creators will see expanded Shopping and brand collaboration benefits, including link placements in Shorts. YouTube
Gemini Adds Shareable Custom Gems: Gemini has introduced a feature allowing users to share their custom Gems—specialized tools built to streamline tasks—with others. Whether it's a tailored vacation planner, creative story‑partner, or meal planner, these Gems can be shared via the web‑based Gem manager, using permissions so recipients can view or edit as needed. This update makes collaboration easier and helps users spend less time prompting and more time creating. Google
Google Expands Discover With More Content From Instagram and YouTube: Google is rolling out updates to Discover, aimed at making it a more personalized hub for catching up on favorite creators and publishers. Users will start seeing a broader mix of content, including social posts from platforms like X, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts, alongside traditional news articles. A new follow option allows people to subscribe to specific publishers and creators, with dedicated spaces showing their latest content. The changes are designed to make Discover a more useful starting point for exploring the web and staying connected with trusted voices. Google
Reddit Ranks #2 in U.S. Web Traffic: Reddit has become the second most visited website in the United States and third in Canada, based on the latest Semrush traffic data. The platform continues to expand its influence with over 415 million global weekly active users engaging in communities that span nearly every topic imaginable. Semrush
Reddit Introduces 6-Second Engaged Video View Optimization for Advertisers: Unlike traditional 2-second view goals, this new optimization targets users more likely to watch videos to completion or at least six seconds, ensuring deeper engagement. Early testing showed dramatic improvements in completion rates, engagement, and cost efficiency. Advertisers can access the new option in Ads Manager within Video Views campaigns, choosing between Lowest Cost and Cost Cap bidding strategies to better align spend with performance goals. Reddit
Threads Opens DMs to All Users: Threads is expanding its direct messaging capabilities by allowing users to receive DM requests from anyone on the app. This update introduces a new setting to activate open message requests, along with a dedicated inbox to manage them. The move marks a shift from Threads' initial policy, which restricted DMs to mutual followers over 18. As private messaging becomes more central to user interaction on social platforms, Threads is adapting to facilitate broader personal and professional connections. Social Media Today
YouTube Rolls Out Collaborations, A/B Title Testing, and New Creative Tools: YouTube announced a series of creator-focused updates, including a new Collaborations feature that lets creators tag and showcase up to five collaborators per video, increasing visibility across multiple audiences. Title A/B testing is being expanded, allowing creators to test different titles and thumbnails to optimize viewer engagement. Shorts are also gaining AI and image stickers for more creative flexibility, while vertical livestreams now support customizable live sticker polls. YouTube
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