👋 Hey everyone, back in your inbox with the round up of what happened in marketing this week. Special shoutout to those of you who subscribed a while back but didn’t get a newsletter until now – you should be all set to get these each week now. I had a fun little Zapier bug that didn’t include you in my list (martech is fun!)

One interesting thing I read this week that has stuck with me: headlines are promises. Whatever is in the H1 on your landing page should be backed up with everything below it. So, don’t go around breaking promises :)

Ok, on to this week’s roundup! 👇

Social Media & The Creator Economy

• Rolling Stone, traditionally a music publication, is shifting its focus a bit to creators. This week they unveiled their first Creators issue with YouTube superstar MrBeast gracing the cover.
• You can now raise money for causes via your IG reels. Users will be able to add fundraising details in the Reels creation process, with fundraiser links remaining active for 30 days.
• Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: IG is changing its ranking algorithm again. This time, the company is placing more value on original content. Which means content someone creates and publishes themselves is likely to be more visible on Instagram than republished content.
• If you want to grow your IG Reels following, using hashtags strategically is a core part of the strategy. Here are 159 (!) of the best hashtags to use on your Reels to promote growth.
• Snap added 13 million new users in the last quarter. See that and a bunch of other company and growth stats in their latest performance update.
• A new report from the team at Sprout Social details the best days and times to post on social media. It’s important to keep up with these times to maximize what little organic reach we all have left. No surprise, the worst day to post is Sunday.
• If you’re a creator or a business that uses Instagram heavily, you’d probably like to make money from it at some point. Here are a few ideas on how to do that from the team at Hootsuite.
• If you can do in-depth analysis or offer commentary on current events, you could be a TikTok star waiting to happen. Going deep on topics is the latest micro trend on the network.

SEO & Content Marketing

• I’m in the middle of a huge website redesign project at my day job, and as the human who does our SEO, it’s given me many new ideas on how to maximize our new site. One thing I’ve been thinking about is how to maximize our homepage for non-branded search, and rank a bit better for our target keywords. This handy guide from ahrefs will help you do the same thing for your homepage.
• Speaking of Google and optimizing for search, this article from Moz does an impressive job of breaking down how to match your SEO and content efforts to the customer journey.
• Google is testing a new feature in the search results: a “what people are saying” panel that pulls answers from Reddit and other places.
• Content marketing and influencers for city tourism isn’t something I’ve read about in depth until this week. Here’s how the city of Boston is using influencers to boost tourism.

Copywriting, Branding & Advertising

• If you’ve ever dreamed of advertising on Netflix, you’ll get your chance in due time. It’s been quite a week for Netflix, and the company announced an ad-supported tier is on the horizon. Why? To combat the trend of subscriber growth slowing down.
• TikTok launched interactive ads this week. The new ads include stickers, popups and more. What’s the point? Well, according to the company’s own research: users that have commented on a TikTok brand video are 150% more likely to buy a product or service. So, interactive ads + engagement = sales. That’s how math works, right?
• College athletes can finally earn money from their likeness and take brand sponsorship deals. It’s been somewhat of a Wild West moment as everyone tries to figure it out. The latest player to enter the arena? NBC Sports, who are creating a new platform to connect athletes directly to brands.
• Copywriting is hard work. Even when you think you’re done with your writing, there are always improvements to be made. This article breaks down 10 copywriting mistakes that can dilute your intended message.
• The Best Ads Of All Time Twitter account is a new one I followed this week. Each day they share an iconic ad from the past and might get your copywriting pen going.
• Message testing is key when you’re scaling a company — and most of us marketers don’t do it enough. Here’s a really in-depth YouTube video on how it plays in to scaling a company with a small marketing budget.

For Fun

• Working less sounds fun, and it turns out it makes you better at work. Work less, and be more productive, according to some folks.

Woo! You made it to the end. Thank you so much for being here for another week.

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