🗞️ Links & Thinks from 2023.02.25

26 Feb, 2023

Word Of Mouth Still Wins

Matter’s new influencer report dropped and has some nuggets:

81% of consumers have been influenced by posts from friends, family, or influencers
69% trust these types of recs more than ones from brands
It’s all about authenticity and relatability
11% prefer celebrity influencers, which is down 2020
Educational content (edutainment) is on the rise (this is the core of TikTok’s Chinese sibling)
Food, wellness, and beauty are influencer powerhouse verticals
YouTube is tops with consumers for authentic influencer content
But users are wising up to sponsored influencer content, thus the de-influencing trend on TikTok.

Influencers (and other user generated content) bridged the gap between organic WOM and advertising, giving the most intimate marketing channel the scale of digital.

Creating a product or service people want to talk about is the best marketing. And allows you to build an advertising engine on the things that make it remarkable, including what real people are saying about it.

What if your ad campaign was designed on a WOM strategy?

YouTube Definitely DTR’ing With Podcasts

A few days ago I wrote about YouTube testing the creation and management of podcasts from Studio. Another day, another news bit and the relationship is definitely being made official.

“If someone wants to watch a podcast, we have a solution,” Chuk said. “If someone wants to listen to a podcast only, we should have a great experience for that as well.”

YouTube Music will soon have dedicated podcast features, including audio-first show badges and support. Platform exclusive shows may be in the future too.

LinkedIn Goes Instagram

LinkedIn is making profiles more visual (to make it seem more like a modern social network) and giving you some control over the display order of different content types and sections.

But the bigger deal in my mind is the ability to schedule newsletters.

We heard you loud and clear - you wanted the ability to schedule content on LinkedIn - and we’re happy to share it’s now possible. Last year, we introduced the option to schedule posts, and now we’re extending that feature to your newsletters and articles as well. This means you can plan your content in advance and share it at the best times to reach your audience.

I like this for two reasons:

It means the platform is taking newsletters seriously, at a time when other social platforms are killing off their offerings.
This is a great option for many people looking to start a personal newsletter on a topic matching the platform.

I set up a newsletter recently to test out the feature.

Pros

Rapid growth: the feature leverages LinkedIn’s social graph and feed to help people discover your newsletter. I hit double digit subscribers in a matter of minutes after launch.
Distribution: it’s a LinkedIn article that also delivers the full version to people’s inboxes. That means you get feed and email visibility from one piece of content.

Cons

Walled garden: as far as I can tell you have to have a LinkedIn profile in order to subscribe, which means your potential audience is limited (but if your topic is well aligned to the platform this may not be a huge deal, depends on your goals).
No data: you don’t get any email addresses or first-party data for your subscribers, just a list of their profile links. This makes moving to a different platform difficult (you can try lead forms, but there is no direct way to hit your subscribers right now).