Howdy everyone! 👋 I’m back with another week of marketing news, trends, and resources. Shoutout to everyone who joined this week, and to long-time readers alike — I’m very honored that you’re reading this newsletter!

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Ok, on to the newsletter!

Social and creator

• The big story this week: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey stepped down this week. Does Twitter need a new business model? Just a few days later, Dorsey’s other company, Square, changed its name to Block. More on that in branding section.
• Another big story for Twitter this week: a new privacy policy for photo sharing. You can no longer share photos that include other people without their explicit permission. There are a bunch more on the not permitted list, which you can find here.
• One of the big stories this week is YouTube creator MrBeast’s “Squid Game” recreation, which is breaking all sorts of records. It hit 100 million views in less than four days! There have been tons of hot takes about how he remade the game, reached more views in less time, etc. etc. It makes sense, since you’re recreating an established idea.
• LinkedIn added new features to “Creator Mode” this week — including the ability to go live and a newsletter feature (which I’m naturally going to try).
• The Smoking Gun in the Facebook Antitrust Case. Yes, it’s another story about Facebook and privacy. As time goes on, more internal documents get revealed that shows how Facebook continuously backslid on their privacy policies.
• This week, everyone was sharing their Spotify wrapped stories — it’s one of my favorite times of year! Not to be outdone on year-end wrap ups, YouTube published their top 10 videos and top 10 creators. New this year: the top 10 shorts creators.
• Your Instagram feed will be a mashup of video content soon, instead of just images. Alongside that, video formats might get consolidated. As with most stories, the app is trying to retain younger users and slow down the abandonment of users to TikTok.
• Gaming squad 100 Thieves raised $60 million this week to further build out their company. Remember when gaming was just a hobby and not a viable way to make a living? Me neither.
• TikTokMadeMeBuyIt is a real thing. For proof: TikTok published a holiday guide featuring the top products sold across the platform.
• Bonus: 22 Instagram stories hacks that will blow your mind. This is from back in the summer, but it was one of our most popular links so far this year.

SEO & content

• YouTube is beta testing a new search insights feature to help creators determine what types of video to create. After watching the video, this is fascinating to me. I can see a future where YouTube SEO efforts rivals Google SEO.
• Google is rolling out search updates for healthcare searches which indicates which insurance providers the doctor’s office accept (in the US only).
• Content is more important than ever, and there are no signs of that slowing down. If you’re a content writer (or an aspiring one), you might find this article interesting: 7 habits to consistently crush content writing.
• The head of Google search put together a list of insights for SEO on Google. Here’s the list of 57 insights.
• Bonus: Everything you need to know about keyword mapping for SEO.

Copywriting branding and advertising

• As mentioned above, payments company Square renamed itself to Block, supposedly signaling a crypto-focused future. In this instance, it would seem the company has forgotten about its core audience, which likes to get paid in fiat.
• LinkedIn rolled out a new privacy-friendly approach to data collection and ad targeting. B2B marketers: make sure to read this one. LinkedIn ads are super expensive, but message ads are really effective from my experience.

Fun

• A broken piece of internet backbone might finally get fixed. There have been so many advances on the internet, but some things keep breaking and need to get fixed. This is the story of the Border Gateway Protocol, often referred to as the backbone of the internet.
• We shared Kat Norton’s story previously, but the verge did a good deep dive this week. How an Excel TikToker manifested her way to making six figures a day. If you’re an expert at something, you can teach others and making a living.

That’s it for this week. Thank you all so much for reading along for another week, I really appreciate you being here with me.

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