Morning Rituals, Finding Content Creators in B2B, Bad Advertising, Understanding Color, LinkedIn Scheduling, and Twitter Craziness from The SUM
Staying aware and self-educated is a habit that takes practice. This basic principle is the how and why of the content contained within the SUM. Reflections and insights shared among peers create an atmosphere and community focused on learning together—it makes us better as creators and innovators, and it's where creativity thrives.
Communication is a constant, it's always evolving, especially with the rapidity of new technology and software. So, stay educated and make change happen with facts. If this newsletter helps one person point their marketing or advertising career in a positive direction, this entire experiment was a success.
Leave a comment at the bottom if you learned something, hated
omething, or just want to say what's up.
Here's a deep dive into what you've missed in November.
The Dark Side to Advertising: Exploring Dark Patterns 😈
Queue "The Imperial March" with Lord Vader stepping onto the sound stage and announcing his new endeavor to manipulate consumers: Dark Patterns. The reference to "dark patterns" is a fairly new term, but as a consumer, you'll understand exactly what it means.
Here are a few examples:
The point of the UX scheme or subscription trap is to throw the consumer into a hole of revolving doors (or ads) that is too deep to climb out of. Still, "enforcement against dark patterns will lie with the FTC," states Alyssa Boyle of AdExchanger.
That said, consumers must alert the resources they have available of unfair or dishonest advertising practices from drip pricing to deceptive subscription practices, like auto-subscription renewals or simple, misleading advertisements.
BBB National Programs or Better Business Bureau can help bring cases to the spotlight where the evildoers can be held responsible. Do your part to keep the Empire at bay!
Finding Content Creators and How Effing Hard It Can Be in B2B
To scale content production, hire content creators. Easy to say but it’s harder in a technical, B2B industry. 😓
“Over 50 million people identify as content creators,” according to Sprout Social, Inc.
The demand in the creator economy comes down to a simple concept marketers are always trying to achieve: authenticity.
If your brand appears authentic, this vibe is a steroid for trust. For sales, trust is the foundation of a closed deal and that fat commission check. An above-average content creator can become a lucrative addition to the sales cycle. 💰
So, how do you find a content creator?
You’ll notice this article favors the B2C community. The concepts are congruent with B2B, albeit those in the trenches of business-to-business marketing will find it difficult to digest all the pointers here and hold back an eye roll. Finding content creators in a niche industry is not for the faint of heart. Hell, finding competent help on Fiverr can be a full-time job. (Do you have "recruiter" listed on your resume?)
Depending on the level of technicality and jargon you’re working through to develop and nurture MQLs into SQLs, an in-house team will be the irrefutable option. Fluffy content doesn’t pass the smell test when you’re speaking like an engineer or architect.
A smart option is enabling your experts to become voices in your industry. Find, train, and create content around your smart people to build their personal brand. Plus, this will invariably enhance your company culture.
The old aphorism, “All ships rise with the tide,” or “A rising tide lifts all boats,” applies here. 🛶
5 Reasons Posting Consistently to LinkedIn is Key
Posting to LinkedIn consistently can be a challenge, but starting with 2-3 posts per week is achievable. Some weeks are missed, typically due to 10-12 hour days during chaos or the holiday season, attempting to hammer out an urgent project or meet a deadline. Just me? 😅
Yet, Brendan Gahan took up the charge of posting every damn day to LinkedIn for a year. He wrote a blog about the takeaways.
⭕️ Growing My (Your) Tribe
Attracting others who think, work, or have similar habits, work life, or opinions will occur organically. It’s not always a “build it and they will come” scenario, but you have a higher probability of succeeding than winning the Powerball.
⭕️ Inbound Business
Smart, relevant, no-nonsense posts attract talent-seekers, recruiters, and/or new clients. It’s that simple.
Top of Feed = Top of Mind
If you’re in Sales, you’re focused on building trust and clout to close more deals faster (i.e. shorten the sales cycle). This translates to more commission. Isn’t that motivation enough to start a new habit? 💰
⭕️ Innovation
You’re forced to stay on top of trends and keep up with relevant conversations. If you’re posting about your industry or what you do in that industry, you’re constantly learning, adapting, and spotting trends before it’s deemed a #trending topic.
⭕️ Partnerships
Your visibility will inevitably lead to opportunities you wouldn’t have otherwise had. Building your personal brand is good for your employer, or your business if you’re an entrepreneur.
Companies pay big money for influencers, so your company will benefit from having a free influencer on staff.
⭕️ Leveling Up
Once you’re over the self-doubt and apprehension, consistency helps to grow your followers and you move into that influencer, “thought leadership” realm.
It’s not necessarily the goal to gain pseudo-fame on a social platform, but what’s it going to hurt? Feeling motivated to starting posting? 📚
The CTA 101: How to Create Engagement
All marketers know the acronym, CTA, but depending on your audience, saying “call-to-action” is more appropriate to describe how this (the product offer or action) is going to convert that (the consumer).
Conversion metrics your C-suite want to understand are based around these actions generated by solid CTAs in the form of:
If creating a CTA is foreign, AdEspresso lays it out plainly with the CTA expressing relevance, clarity, and urgency.
The call-to-action can be long or short, but the purpose is to convert. If your click performance is weak, change up your CTA—or even better—always run an A/B test to optimize your ad performance.
Still feeling foggy about creating a CTA? 😶
This article gives you an exhaustive list of examples to learn from, steal from, or simply absorb for later use.
Recommended by LinkedIn
Color is Subjective, Not Objective: Understanding Perception
When you don’t see eye-to-eye with someone, there’s a literal and figurative reason for that. How people see the world, specifically in color, varies.
Two big points here:
1. Color is less objective than you might think, so expect disagreement among the peanut gallery when you bring out color palettes for your company rebrand.
Language and linguistics are affected by location and culture while aging literally brings in the golden years of your life as your lenses yellow. The foods you eat affect the thickness of your pigments, which restricts the amount of blue light your retina receives, and blue-eyed people test better than brown-eyed people in color discrimination studies.
All of this adds to the subjectivity of color.
2. No matter how great you’ve dialed in your color settings on your external monitor or your laptop, whatever you’re drawing up might not look so vibrant to someone else.
The point being the red you perceive might not be the red your graphic designer intended.
Also, it’s very important to consider ADA compliance for color and contrast concerning web accessibility, but it’s something to always be aware of in any design you’re creating or critiquing. 🎨
What's Changing with "Sponsored Ads" in Google Search?
Desensitization to Google Search ads is an issue they're working on—kind of. ⚒️
So, what changed?
Currently, the changes are only being rolled out for mobile search, but Google will begin testing a similar look on desktop.
The purpose of labeling purchased ad space as 𝗦𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗼𝗿𝗲𝗱 instead of using the former 𝗔𝗱 signifier is to better distinguish unpaid search results from paid search without any ambiguity. During the "fake news" panic of 2020, this issue became a problem for Google.
Also, it's obvious the word 𝗦𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗼𝗿𝗲𝗱 has been popularized by Meta on Facebook and Instagram, while Twitter and LinkedIn stick with 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗱 ads or posts. "Sponsored" has positive associations with the word and usage, whereas "Ad" can drum up a slimy, cartoon-looking car salesman in your mind convincing you to buy a piece of junk off the lot.
We'll see if Snap Inc.—who currently slaps 𝗔𝗱 in the bottom lefthand corner—switches over to the new lingo.
IMO 💭 this doesn't fix the old habit of avoiding the top search engine spaces overnight, even if 𝗦𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗼𝗿𝗲𝗱 feels better than 𝗔𝗱 at first glance.
As the idiom states: "Old habits die hard."
Twitter Defectors Flee to Mastadon: Are You Jumping Ship?
Did you create a Mastodon account yet? Didn’t think so.
While many tweeters claim to be flying the coop in the aftermath of the Twitter takeover, the mass exodus to unknown applications won’t be an easy transition.
Fringe social networks and blogging apps—like Mastodon, Discord, VERO, Truth Social, and others—have negative components working against them that affect the migration patterns of defecting users. Even Reddit, Inc. was unknown to many people until it was outed as the staging ground for the GameStop rebellion.
Here are 4 high-level reasons:
If you’re ready to jump ship, here’s an article from Buffer with everything you need to know about Mastodon.
The Process in Timestamps: An Ode to Routine
Every morning, I pour a cup of coffee, and then a series of events take place with surprising consistency (i.e. the definition of routine). This sets the pace for your day, gets you set off on the right foot, and builds a positive habit.
6:30 A.M.
Review Twitter notifications and trending topics for relevant information within marketing/advertising and the stock market.
6:45 A.M.
Sift through newsletters—business, marketing, economic, and telecommunications related—for curation and learning opportunities.
💡 Morning Brew, Axios, Social Media Today, LLC, Search Engine Journal, ACA Connects, Fiber Broadband Association, and SmartBrief often get the majority of my attention.
7:00 A.M.
Check Google Trends and custom keyword alerts with marketing, branding, advertising, telecom biases for relevant topics to read and/or write about.
7:15 A.M.
Decide on the topics and articles that are most relevant for discussion, reflection, and opinions. The process of elimination is a positive habit for those who are prone to indecision.
7:30 A.M.
Digest and write.
7:45 A.M.
Publish or schedule those curated topics for dispersal to social channels to promote visibility within my network(s). Still waiting on those LinkedIn scheduling features...
8:00 A.M.
Begin the average workday by reviewing the List of 100 Tasks (ongoing) and weighing what is the path of least resistance toward completion.
Food for Thought
What's your morning routine? ☀️
How do you wake up your brain? 🧠
How do you continue learning and honing your skills? 🏫
The SUM is derived from industry news and insights related to marketing, copywriting, advertising, branding, web best practices, and more. If you enjoyed the first iteration of the SUM, subscribe for biweekly updates or follow Zach Burger for content that doesn't miss a beat.