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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Reddit’s IPO, OpenAI Wants to License MSM Content, Elon Wants a Bigger Stake in Tesla

Happy Monday, y’all! So a week ago, we were preparing for what we thought would be a light dusting of snow here in Alabama. A week later, we are just now starting to see the ice start to significantly melt.  Many roads in this area are still closed. We had a terrible situation where snow and rain fell the first couple of days then overnight it froze. So by Weds and Thurs, all the slush had been packed down into a sheet of hard ice that covered all the roads and yards.  Basically, everyone has been homebound for the last week. It’s been really frustrating, but thankfully the temps will rise up to the 60s this week so most of the ice should be gone by this time tomorrow at the latest.

Now that the weather update is out of the way, let’s dive into a banger of a Monday’s Marketing Minute with a big surprise at the end:

 

Reddit is planning on offering an Initial Public Offering in March. I will be curious to see what the reaction is to this move. Reddit has had its issues in the past. I’ve been using Reddit actively for about six months now. Reddit has one thing going for it that other social media platforms really can’t replicate: It has a community or subreddit for literally every topic under the sun. So it can be a wonderful place to learn about a niche topic and engage with likeminded individuals that you probably can’t find as easily on other social media platforms. On the downside, it has a serious troll problem, in fact I would say it’s on par with Twitter, maybe worse. My guess is the response to the IPO will be a bit lukewarm, unless something changes.

 

So the New York Times is suing OpenAI because it claims that OpenAI is using its copyrighted material to train its ChatGPT AI program. OpenAI has denied these claims, but is rumored to be in talks with three mainstream media sources to license its content for just that purpose. Of the three, Time has confirmed that the talks are happening and are ongoing. The obvious potential problem with this move would be that ChatGPT would likely lean heavily on content provided by these three sources. That’s a worrisome thing, even if the content ChatGPT used in its training is always accurate. But I suspect this will be an ongoing trend, different AI models will sign exclusive agreements with select publishers, and each one will likely create its own identify based off the content sources it uses for training. Maybe this AI tool is for liberals, this one is for conservatives, this one is for NFL fans, this one is for people who engage in outdoor sports.

 

Elon is asking Tesla to let him effectively double his stake in the company.  Elon wants to have a 25% stake in the company, so the AI products he is developing can fall under the Tesla brand and be developed and utilized internally by the company. Elon says if Tesla won’t do so, he will build AI products outside of Tesla. Which would likely mean building them then licensing the AI tools back to Tesla for a hefty fee.  So could be a win-win for Elon, Say what you will about him, but Musk is a smart businessman.

 

BONUS: She’s baaaaaack!!!!  I was on YouTube over the weekend and I was overjoyed to see not one but TWO new marketing/business videos from one of the smartest people I know, the legendary Kathy Sierra. Here’s the first one, she has a followup to this video as well. Please subscribe to Kathy’s YouTube channel to get all her content, she’s just flat out brilliant.

 

So that’s it for this edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute. Later this week I’ll publish the Tourism Power List for January, be looking for that. I hope everyone has a wonderful and productive week!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: ChatGPT Launches Store, Google Faces Layoffs, Political Ad Spending Soars

Happy Monday, y’all, and a Happy Belated New Year as this the first edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute for 2024.  I hope you have a wonderful week, and be safe to all of you that are dealing with the big snowstorm that’s slowly marching across the country.  Here’s a few business stories that caught my eye over the last few days:

ChatGPT has officially launched a store for custom GPTs. The store will feature custom versions of ChatGPT build around a specific use or set of parameters. For instance, maybe you want one that adopts the persona of a world-class fitness expert, or botanist. Whereas ChatGPT is more general and requires you to engage in ‘prompt engineering’ to get more relevant answers, a lot of that heavy lifting has already been done with the custom GPTs that will be available in the store. Its a great idea to extend the functionality of ChatGPT, and it will drive more sales as you have to be on the paid version of ChatGPT to buy from the store.

 

Google recently announced another round of layoffs from multiple departments as it wants to pivot more resources into its AI offerings. The initial round of layoffs is around 1,000, but some analysts believe that figure could soon balloon to over 30,000.  Twitch and Discord have also had layoffs in addition to previous ones at Meta. So as AI becomes more integrated at the enterprise level in 2024, we could see more layoffs and restructuring at companies across the board

 

And finally, here’s news no one wanted to hear: Political ad spending is expected to jump by 33% in 2024 over 2020 levels. This makes sense as there’s a more crowded field of candidates this time, especially on the Republican side, along with potentially one viable independent candidate in Robert F Kennedy Jr. My sympathy in advance for any of you in a swing state, I can only imagine how bad the robocalls will get.

 

So that’s it for this edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute.  I hope you have a blessed and productive week!

BTW if you are on LinkedIn, please connect with me there. I will be spending a lot more time on LinkedIn in 2024, and likely a lot less on Twitter. So LinkedIn and this blog will be the two main ways to keep up with me on a daily basis moving forward. I hope to see you there, have a great week!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Sam Altman Back at OpenAI, Cyber Monday Sales Set to Surge, Twitter Beats Facebook and IG for Referral Traffic

Happy Cyber Monday, y’all! I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving week with friends and family. We have now officially entered the ‘lull’ part of the year for most of us. The rest of the year will primarily be focused on the holidays, our families, and planning for 2024.  In both our personal and professional lives. I hope you have a wonderful close to your 2023 and that it sets you up for an amazing 2024! Here’s some of the business stories I’ve had my eye on this year:

 

Sam Altman is back as CEO of OpenAI. The rumor is that OpenAI had recently made a ‘massive breakthrough in AI that could threaten humanity’ and Altman didn’t notify the BOD. Sounds like a cover-story, but if true, it makes no logical sense. If the BOD is worried that OpenAI will eventually have a breakthrough in AI that will pose a huge threat to humanity, why does the company exist?  Obviously, when you take some of the world’s brightest engineers and coders and put them together on a project, you can expect huge advancements in short order.

An interesting side note to this story is that when Altman was fired, almost every OpenAI employee signed a letter saying they were going to Microsoft if the board didn’t resign and re-hire Altman as CEO.  It looks like that’s exactly what happened, so that’s quite a testament to the support Altman has from his employees.

 

I think we all could use good economic news, so here’s some: Cyber Monday sales are projected to spike 8.4% over last year. Online sales every day since Thanksgiving are up solidly over 2022 levels. Let’s hope this is a sign that the economy is starting to finally rebound from the pandemic bottom.

 

I’m not a huge fan of sharing info with such little sourcing, but here you go. I tend to believe this since referral traffic from Facebook in particular has been falling for a long time, mostly by design as Meta keeps creating barriers to keep traffic locked on its site. Of course, if all three sources are going down, does that change the value of the information? Hmmm.

 

So that’s it for this week’s edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute. I will likely have another post up later this week.  Possibly one over the weekend as well, I have a few ideas from my Bible studies that I am mulling over for a post.  Till then, I hope you have a wonderful and productive week!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Sam Altman Fired as OpenAI CEO, Executives Worry About AI, Google Introduces Notes

Happy Monday, y’all! I hope you had a restful weekend and are ready for a productive week! It’s Thanksgiving week here in the States, but it seems like we are still in store for a crazy news week, as you can see in our first story:

 

So on Friday, OpenAI’s Board of Directors unexpectedly fired CEO Sam Altman.  That set off a chain of events that is still playing out at this moment.  Where we are right now:

  • The BOD for OpenAI fired Sam Altman as CEO
  • OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman quit OpenAI in protest
  • The hot rumor at this point was that the BOD was going to cave and bring back Altman and Brockman.
  • Instead, they hired Mira Murati, the CTO, as interim CEO
  • Then, Emmett Shear was named interim CEO
  • Then, and this is the biggie….Microsoft hires Sam Altman and Greg Brockman to head up a new AI initiative at the company.  Microsoft is an investor in OpenAI.
  • Then, 500 of OpenAI’s 770 employees write a letter to the BOD saying if the BOD doesn’t resign and reinstate Altman and Brockman to their previous positions, that all 500 employees will quit OpenAI and join Microsoft to work with Altman and Brockman

And that gets you up to date as of this moment.  By the time I finish this post there could be a breaking development, so I better write fast.

 

On the heels of that crazy first story, guess what area executives are worried about? Artificial intelligence, of course! AI contains the perfect mixture of potential and mystery to keep it top of mind for decision makers at every company.

 

Years ago, Seth Godin launched a product called Side Pages (I think) that was basically a browser extension that let you add notes to any page on the internet. So you could visit a page and see notes that other users had added about that page.  That project didn’t last long, but it sounds like Google is looking to incorporate a similar functionality into its search results with Notes. Notes is being tested with users of Google’s Search Labs, and would basically allow users to add notes and comments to entries in search results. I think it could be a useful feature, if implemented properly.

 

So that’s it for this week’s edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute. This is Thanksgiving week in the states, so I hope those of you that are traveling will do so safely, and have a wonderful time with your friends and family. I’m honestly not sure if I will have any more posts up this week or not.  I hope you have a wonderful week!

 

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Facebook Wants to Charge Users, Grok Debuts, Brand Loyalty Drives Purchases

Happy Monday, y’all! I hope you are ready to have a productive week! Here’s a few business stories that have caught my eye over the last few days:

 

If you haven’t noticed, we are transitioning from social media being free, to being paid.  First Elon bought Twitter, which he claims was in huge financial distress (I believe him) and ever since he has been attempting to monetize basic features of Twitter which had always been free. Now, it looks like Meta is trying to do the same thing with Facebook and Instagram.  Under the guise of ‘we have to do this, we have no choice!’  Remember Elon has framed many of his initial monetization attempts as being necessary ‘to combat bots’ on Twitter. This is a big topic and I will have more to say on it in a full post on Thursday.

 

Elon has debuted Grok, X’s attempt at a ChatGPT/Claude AI rival.  And shockingly, it will be a feature only available to Premium X subscribers, tying into the first story.  Again, more on this on Thursday. The big advantage that Grok could have will be real-time access to tweets that can inform answers.

 

People buy from brands they trust. You can say that’s common sense, but if that’s the case, why is 99% of advertising aimed at acquiring NEW customers versus appealing to EXISTING ones? Also, note that for customers aged 55+, the only two significant drivers of purchases are past experience/trust in a brand, or a recommendation from a friend or family member.  That’s it. Which shows that advertising a brand that the customer is unfamiliar with has almost no impact on purchase behavior if that customer is 55 or over.

 

So that’s it for this week’s edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute, thanks for reading! Tomorrow will be the November Power List update for the Tourism industry, and on Thursday there will be a post on the trend of social media sites moving from free to paid.

There might be a Bible-related post on the weekend, I honestly haven’t decided yet. I do have a new app recommendation I want to share, and will do so if I write a post.

I hope you have a great week, please return tomorrow for the Tourism Power List for November!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Amazon’s $4B Investment in Anthropic, Twitter Making a Profit, Gen Z’s Social Media Habits

Happy Monday, y’all! Welcome to October, probably my favorite month of the year, at least from a weather perspective. It’s starting out hot, but by Halloween the days and nights will be crisp and clear, I can’t wait! While we wait, let’s stay busy and immersed in a few stories from the business/marketing/web3 worlds:

 

As I’ve said before, Claude is my favorite AI tool. Well it’s parent company, Anthropic, just announced a massive $4B investment from Amazon. This makes sense, as Amazon would no doubt love to leverage the technology behind Claude to help with production recommendations, summarizing user reviews, etc.

 

So Twitter/X CEO Linda Yaccarino recently gave us an update on the platform’s performance. She claims that 90% of its Top 100 advertisers have returned to Twitter/X, and that the platform is on pace to return to profitability sometime early next year. When Elon announced Yaccarino as new CEO, I speculated that the main driver for this move was the sense that Yaccarino could coax advertisers to return to Twitter, and it seems that’s working. I’m still very much worried about the future of the platform, as Elon keeps hinting that he wants to take Twitter/X to a completely paid platform, meaning all users would have to pay a fee to use the platform.

 

How are Gen Zers (born approximately 1996-2010) using social media?  To watch videos…and some other stuff. If you want to create content that connects with teens and twentysomethings, it needs to be video first, at least that’s the findings we see below:

 

So that’s it for this edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute! What do we have on tap for the rest of the week here? Tomorrow, we will have the FIRST update to a Power List, as the October Power List for Technology will be revealed (Spoiler alert: We have THREE new entries!). And on Thursday there will be a new post up on restaurant marketing.

I hope you all have a wonderfully productive week!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Another Elon Misstep, Instagram Still the King of Influencer Marketing, YouTube Adds AI Tools for Creators

Happy Monday, y’all! It’s the first official full week of Fall! My favorite time of the year! I hope you are ready to have a productive week, here’s a few stories that caught my eye over the last week:

 

I started to spin this story into its own post, and probably will at some point soon. Elon is floating the idea of charging ALL Twitter users a fee to use his platform. This is the first time in my 16+ years of using Twitter that I am seriously considering if it is time to leave the platform. Working on the Power Lists for Technology, Retail and Tourism (with Restaurants debuting on Weds) has been an eye-opener. I had always heard peers claim that there was a mass exodus of professionals from Twitter when Elon took over, but I just assumed that was overblown. It’s not, at least not in the four industries above.  Pros from technology, retail, tourism, and restaurant are absolutely more active right now on LinkedIn than they are on Twitter. In reviewing hundreds of Twitter accounts over the last month, I lost count on how many pros hadn’t tweeted in 2023, who were active on LinkedIn. I’ve been hearing ‘Is Twitter dying?’ for at least the last 10-12 years. This is the first time I think it’s a legitimate question to ask.

 

Companies working with influencers are still spending more marketing dollars on Instagram than anywhere else. Perhaps it’s simply a desire to be contrarian, but I’m wondering if there’s an opportunity for a certain brand to partner with the right influencer and create some momentum on Snapchat? Sometimes it pays to go in the opposite direction of the herd.

 

Social media platforms continue to integrate AI as a way to aid creators. LinkedIn has done it, Elon is working on an AI alternative to ChatGPT that will no doubt be integrated into Twitter/X, and now YouTube is doing the same. I think we will eventually see a time very soon where video platforms like YouTube will allow you to create a video on the fly from a simple prompt, using AI. An additional app YouTube announced is YouTube Create, which is a standalone app that is geared toward mobile creators, giving them simple editing tools to use on the fly. I actually think it will be a big hit with smaller YouTube creators.

 

So that’s it for this week’s edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute. On Thursday, I will have a new post on tourism marketing. But tomorrow the debut edition of The Restaurant Power List will launch, so be sure to check back here to see who ends up #1! Hope you have an amazing week!

 

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Gen Z Loves AI, Top 5 Industries For Digital Ads, Research on Social Media ROI

Happy Monday, y’all! I hope you are ready for a productive week.  Saturday is the first day of Fall! Fall is my favorite time of the year, I love it! Here’s a few business/marketing stories that caught my eye over the last week.

 

Not surprisingly, youngsters are more likely to use AI tools, and become proficient using them. A recent survey by SalesForce found that 49% of respondents have used generative AI tools, with 70% of Gen Z using them. The article also notes that 68% of Baby Boomers and Gen X have not used AI tools.  Apparently anyone born prior to 1981 is automatically ‘old’ now.

 

Five industries will see above average growth in digital ad spending in 2023. They are, in order; Travel, Retail, Healthcare, Automotive, Entertainment. I suppose all those make sense in one way or another, maybe automotive is the hardest to rationalize.  But the others I can see. Speaking of travel, the first Tourism Power List will debut this week, more on that at the end of the post.

 

Sprout Social has released its latest report on the state of social media marketing. From the takeaways that Sprout Social has shared, it seems like many marketers are still struggling to accurately measure the business impact of social media, which is amazing to say in 2023. It was interesting that the study found that 81% of respondents can already see that AI is making a positive impact on their work, but that makes sense from a content creation perspective.

 

So that’s it for this week’s edition of the Monday Marketing Minute. So tomorrow, I have a new post up on retail marketing, and on Wednesday, I will publish the debut edition of the Tourism Power List. I’m so pumped for that as the tourism space is probably my favorite to work in.  If you want to get a sneak peek at the Tourism Power List candidates, here they are.

I hope you have a wonderful week, enjoy the Fall weather!

 

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Meta’s AI Play, CMOs Don’t Trust Their Data, CS to ‘Older’ Americans

Happy Monday, y’all! I hope everyone is ready for another productive week! I think today will be the last hot day of the year for us, temps are supposed to be in the high 80s. After today, temps will be in the low 80 or high 70s for the rest of the week and next. Fall is almost here! It’s honestly my favorite time of the year! I hope the weather and everyone else is wonderful where you are, here’s 3 stories that caught my eye:

 

So Meta is working on a new AI engine to try to catch OpenAI. According to this article, Meta’s first foray into AI, Llama2, was trained on 70 billion parameters. Sources in Meta say the new engine will be ‘several times’ larger, but that might not be enough, as the latest version of ChatGPT is said to be trained on well over a trillion parameters. Meta, Google and others will all be rushing to get new AI systems out over the next 6-18 months. As crazy as 2023 was for AI development, 2024 could be even moreso.

 

CMOs aren’t trusting the data they have to work with. In fact, a third of CMOs don’t trust their data OR their analysts, according to new research by AgilityPR. And I think this is a problem that will be made worse by AI, at least in the short term. After AI systems become more mature and robust in data management, they can become a much better asset to CMOs in this regard.

 

Ok I gotta be honest: The main reason why I included this next story was because it irked me that the article considers anyone over 45 to be an ‘older’ adult. Seriously???  Look we are getting old fast enough, I don’t need to hear that once you hit 45 it’s time to start sizing up rocking chairs for the front porch! Besides, have you tried to call into customer service lately? I don’t want to deal with the 45-60 minute or more wait times on a phone. I’d rather do the same thing in chat and wait for a ‘ding’ to tell me they are ready.  *shakes fist at clouds*

 

So that’s it for this week’s edition of the Monday Marketing Minute! On Wednesday, look for the unveiling of the Power List for the RETAIL industry! Last week we debuted the Power List for the Technology industry, and have received a lot of nice feedback from those chosen, and I can see they are getting some nice exposure from being on the Power List, which is great to see. So see you Weds for that, and a new post up tomorrow! Have a great week!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Threads Usage is Down, So is ChatGPT, AI Hype vs Employment Reality

Happy Monday, y’all! In the US, today is Labor Day, so I hope you are having a restful day. This will be the 2nd of three posts I am writing today, but it’s mostly my fault for not getting more accomplished last Saturday. Here’s some business stories that have caught my eye over the last few days:

 

Threads usage continues to crater, and I am heartbroken over it.  I’ve never signed up for Threads, and I’m not planning on doing so. Now there’s new data out that says usage is actually down a staggering 79% on the Android app since its peak in early July. I’ve also read that Facebook has now started promoting individual Threads on Instagram in an attempt to siphon off traffic. As you read all three stories in this post, you will see a common theme:  Hype fueling speculation on usage and outcomes that evaporates once reality sets in.

 

ChatGPT is also seeing a solid decline in usage of 29% since May. This isn’t quite as significant in my mind as the Threads plunge for a couple of reasons. First, it’s a much lower drop and it’s over 3 months versus Threads seeing a 79% drop on just one device over the last month alone.  Second, there was a flood of hype about ChatGPT earlier this year, but once people started using ChatGPT, they found it actually takes some work to get decent results from the AI tool. And let’s be honest; A lot of people don’t like to put in work to get results, so they are bailing on ChatGPT until someone comes out with an easier AI tool for them to use, or a better How To article on prompt engineering.

 

Our third story also deals with hype vs reality. This time, we are looking at the massive speculation earlier this year that AI was going to steal all our jobs.  So far, we aren’t seeing anything to support this fear.  Kelly points us to research on Forbes that shows that only 9% of companies have reduced staff because of AI.  Now to be fair, that percentage could and likely will increase a bit in the coming years as AI technology matures and companies become more familiar with its capabilities. But as for now, we are still dealing with a disconnect between hype and reality when it comes to actual employment numbers.

 

So that’s it for this week’s edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute.  Now, on Wednesday, the first ever Twitter Power List for the Technology industry will debut. The Power List will include the 10 people in technology that you should be following, the Power List. If you work in the technology industry and want to be considered for the Power List, first follow me on Twitter. Make sure your profile includes the position you hold and the technology company you work for.  If you qualify for the Power List for Technology, I will add you to this Twitter list of candidates. See you back here on Weds for the reveal!