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THE GREAT DIGITAL FATIGUE: HOW DIGITAL BURNOUT IS CHANGING SOCIAL MEDIA USE

Users are pulling back from social media, with 55% posting less and 53% limiting audiences, while 47% have deleted apps due to stress. Over half say maintaining a presence feels like work, especially Gen Z, and 44% cite political content as a reason to disengage. Stepping away brings mixed emotions, with 27% feeling peaceful but 22% anxious, highlighting how platforms now feel more like obligations than connection.

THE FORTUNE 500 IS DELETING THE CMO TITLE

The CMO title is disappearing, with only 36% of Fortune 500 companies still using it, down from 49% last year. Companies are folding marketing into revenue and growth roles, and fewer marketing leaders report to the CEO, now at 52%. Roles like Chief Growth Officer and Chief Commercial Officer are replacing CMOs, as companies push for direct revenue ownership. The role isn't disappearing, but being absorbed into broader functions.

5 STORYTELLING FRAMEWORKS TO ATTRACT B2B BUYERS

A B2B narrative is not an emotional pitch but a logical thread connecting why a brand exists, what it's fighting against, and how it helps customers win. Each event in that story needs to happen because of the one before it, replacing the flat "and then" of a feature list with a "because of that" chain that creates stakes and payoff. That thread also needs an opponent, the specific practice or belief the brand positions itself against, since without one there's nothing for the story to resolve.

HOW TO BUILD A BRAND PRESENCE ON REDDIT IN 2026

Reddit works best when brands learn community behavior before they try to promote anything. Start by using the free Reddit Pro tools to track keywords, analyze discussions, and monitor performance. Spend time in relevant subreddits to understand the tone and common conversations so your organic posts and ads match community expectations. Reddit has become more valuable because Google Search and AI chatbots cite its discussions more often, so a strong presence can increase product discovery and brand visibility.

9 TIPS TO APPLYING IN TODAY'S MARKET

Most roles are decided before they're posted, so early outreach and networking matter more than cold applications. Strong candidates show proof of work through portfolios, keep resumes clean and focused, and send short tailored pitches instead of generic intros. Researching the company, applying early, and asking thoughtful questions helps differentiate. Posting on LinkedIn also signals how candidates think and that they can build distribution.

TWO MONTHS OF SILENCE → A BOOKED CALL

A follow-up that converted a ghosted lead used a simple system. Claude pulls full context from Gmail and Google Drive. Claap transcripts surface exact call details like pain points and goals. Semrush adds relevant keyword and ranking insights. A quick manual check updates anything that's changed. Claude then drafts the email in the sender's voice, followed by edits.

VIDEO EDITING WITH CLAUDE: 5 AI SKILLS YOU NEED TO TRY (34 MINUTE VIDEO)

This video shows how to use Claude to cut videos with transcript-based edits, add auto-zooms, organize assets with a Slack bot, apply AI color grading, and find B-roll from across the web. The workflow uses Claude, GitHub skills, MCPs, and tools like Tela to automate repetitive editing tasks.

IF YOUR BRAND ISN'T SHOWING UP IN YOUTUBE AI SEARCH, YOUR COMPETITORS ARE

Google's AI search is pulling YouTube videos into answers, often favoring creators over brands. Content that's clearly structured and built around real questions performs best. Depth across related topics also matters more than single keywords. Creators are winning by doing this well, leaving brands that rely on product-led content at risk of being left out of the answer.

FUNNY MARKETING 101

Effective marketing humor comes down to two rules that don't apply to comedy in general, being specific enough that only a narrow audience gets the joke, and being surprising enough to subvert what that audience already expects. Niche recognition works because most brands never bother creating humor built for one audience's daily frustrations, which is why an internal joke about IT teams or LinkedIn cringe can outperform anything broader. The same subversion shows up in a simple format, one where a familiar structure gets a new idea poured into it, then twisted in a way the audience doesn't see coming.

5 WAYS TO USE GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE FOR KEYWORD RESEARCH

GSC can help you spot opportunities like striking distance keywords sitting on page 2 and low CTR pages with great rankings.

SUBSTACK'S NEW TOOL TELLS YOU WHO'S BEEN WRITING THEIR NEWSLETTERS WITH AI

Substack is integrating AI detection software from Pangram so readers can see an estimated human-versus-AI split for any newsletter post, note, or comment over 100 characters.

HOW POPPI BUILT A BILLION-DOLLAR SODA BRAND

Poppi created its own category, then spent roughly 20% of its marketing budget on TikTok creators, making creator content the primary driver of awareness.

Client asks, you deliver the data. Free to try for 14 days.

THE B2B BLOG IS COLLAPSING. THE COMPANIES REPLACING IT ARE BECOMING PUBLISHERS

The SEO blog playbook is losing ground as zero-click search rises and platform reach declines. Owned media replaces it, with brands building publications for a defined audience. This model drives distribution through shares, interviews, and syndication. It also turns content into pipeline. Early results show traction from niche audiences and growing AI referrals.

WHY SAVVY MEDIA BUYERS ARE BETTING ON MALL ADVERTISING

Media buyers are increasingly turning to mall advertising because it delivers something scarce in a fragmented media landscape: physically present and highly attentive audiences rather than sheer digital reach. Malls have shifted from pure retail destinations into lifestyle hubs, drawing people in for fitness classes and healthcare appointments as often as for shopping. That inventory is now largely digitized, so buyers can target every screen within a set distance of a specific location and measure results through foot traffic, offsite visits, and spend data instead of modeled estimates.

FRENCH LAWMAKERS APPROVE A SWEEPING SOCIAL MEDIA BAN FOR CHILDREN UNDER 15

France's ban arrives alongside a broader European push on kids and social media, with the EU's top official calling for limits and an EU advisory panel recommending zero access for children under 13 until platforms can prove their products are safe. Spain and the UK have each floated similar restrictions, and the European Commission is expected to propose EU-wide rules for its 27 member countries.

HOW TO BUILD CURIOSITY INTO HIGH-PERFORMING SOCIAL ADS

Attention gets a viewer to notice a social ad, but curiosity is what keeps them from scrolling away in the next few seconds. Platforms are increasingly built to reward the second half of that equation. Meta and TikTok's AI-driven delivery systems now optimize for watch time, saves and shares, and clicks that happen after the video ends. These are all signals a genuinely curious viewer produces without prompting. Building that gap into the creative means designing open loops, such as a surprising statement or an unresolved problem, then demonstrating a result instead of describing it.

WHEN AND HOW TO CALL CUSTOMERS BY NAME

Using a customer's name can increase spending and satisfaction when it feels natural and personal. Customers spent 17.3% more on average and accepted upsell offers more than twice as often when employees used their name during the interaction instead of only during the sales pitch. Introduce employees by name first and train staff to use customer names sparingly because scripted or repetitive use reduces the effect. Avoid using customer names in private or sensitive situations because discomfort can reverse the benefit.

USE MY /NO-AI-SLOP SKILL TO REMOVE 20+ PATTERNS OF AI SLOP FROM YOUR WRITING

The free /no-ai-slop AI skill removes more than 20 common AI writing patterns from emails, documents, and other content. It can also detect AI-generated writing by identifying those same patterns and listing what it finds. The skill targets habits such as generic openers, fake insights, vague analysis, and other repetitive phrasing that makes AI writing easy to spot. You can install the skill from its GitHub repository and use it in Codex, Claude Code, or other AI coding assistants.

AI VISIBILITY IS A TOPIC-LEVEL GAME: A STUDY OF 50,000 BRANDS IN CHATGPT

A study of 50K brands found that winning one ChatGPT prompt does not mean owning a topic. Only 15% of categories had a clear leader, leaving most topics open for competitors. Traditional SEO metrics like traffic and authority scores only predicted winners about half the time. Brands that consistently appear across related questions build stronger AI visibility. Once a brand gains a wide lead, it becomes harder to overtake.

HOW TO KNOW YOU'RE READY FOR A FRACTIONAL CMO AND HOW TO BRIEF ONE WELL

Most companies wait until something breaks before hiring a fractional CMO. Readiness isn't about size, it's about having a real strategy gap and a team that can execute. Common signals include weak positioning and looming inflection points like a fundraise or expansion. It's not a fit without product market fit or an execution layer. Bring clear problems, real data, and defined decision rights to get value quickly.

MEASUREMENT IS A BUSINESS ADVANTAGE

Better measurement creates a competitive advantage because it uncovers profitable channels, improves ad platform optimization, and helps teams make budget decisions with confidence. Click-based reporting often undervalues channels like podcasts, influencers, and sponsorships, so companies that combine attribution surveys and brand signals can find lower cost opportunities before competitors do. Better conversion data also helps Google and Meta optimize for higher quality customers instead of low value leads.

INSIDE GENERAL MILLS'S BRAND ARCHIVE

General Mills's brand archive functions as both a lookup service and a forward-looking curation system, holding more than 10,000 records across 5,000 square feet that trace the company's 160-year history. Brand teams query it for context on products like Bisquick and Betty Crocker, while the three-person team also flags today's campaigns as candidates for tomorrow's collection. The volume and variety of modern marketing content, spanning far more channels than earlier decades, has made deciding what to keep the hardest ongoing call.

OUR GOLDEN RULE ON VIDEO VS CAROUSEL

Use video for one takeaway and carousels for multi or technical ideas.

THE MOST VALUABLE THING APPLE BUILT IN THE 2000S WASN'T THE IPOD

Apple treated iTunes as a customer acquisition tool because song sales supported iPod adoption and later removed friction for products like the App Store and Apple Pay.

See what works →

AI CONTENT IS EVERYWHERE ON SOCIAL MEDIA, ESPECIALLY LINKEDIN

AI-generated content is spreading across social media, with longform posts hit the hardest. Pangram data from over 1M posts shows 13.8% flagged as AI, rising to 25% for posts over 250 words. LinkedIn drives nearly two-thirds of flagged content, with over 40% of longform posts fully AI-generated. X shows the highest combined AI use when including mixed content. Reddit replies remain mostly human, but top-level posts show higher AI rates, revealing gaps in moderation.

OPENAI APPEARS TO BE MISSING ITS SALES GOALS BY A VAST MARGIN

OpenAI's $100 billion ad-revenue target for 2030 requires three things to happen at once. Advertisers moving decades of search and social budgets into chatbots, OpenAI out-competing Google and Meta for that spend, and the entire AI ad market growing roughly 100 times from where it sits today. The category's entire addressable market currently tops out around $5.4B, and OpenAI itself is on pace to miss its own ad revenue forecast by about 90% this year.

COPYWRITING BREAKDOWN: HOW TO SELL SOMETHING ORDINARY

Strong marketing often comes from better research instead of better copy. Claude Hopkins won customers in a crowded category by asking hundreds of consumers what they wanted, measuring how Palmolive performed against those needs, and turning the results into specific proof points. The ad replaced vague claims with numbers such as 250 times more lather, 15% water absorption in one minute, and lather that lasted 10 minutes. Research, measurable evidence, and clear messaging can make an ordinary product stand out even when competitors offer similar features.

DON'T BLOCK PERSONAL EMAILS

Blocking personal emails in B2B forms can hurt conversion rates. Instead, detect domains like Gmail or iCloud and require a company URL field. With name and company, you can still find or enrich work emails. This keeps friction low while preserving lead quality. Many high-intent leads still submit personal emails, often due to autofill behavior.

SWAG THAT WORKS: THE NEW RULES FOR TRADE SHOW GIVEAWAYS

47% of marketers already treat branded merchandise as a core marketing channel, and 87% of recipients keep and use what they receive rather than tossing it. Middesk built a tiered swag strategy around that shift at Money20/20, gating higher-value items behind booth actions like booking a sales meeting or agreeing to a case study, then generated 10 times its activation spend in new pipeline and 26 times more in influenced pipeline. The gifting also produced a surprise: a steep jump in LinkedIn followers driven entirely by pins and luggage tags that were never meant to be the campaign's main goal.

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OPAL U: BECOME A CERTIFIED AI EXPERT IN 5 DAYS

Opal U is a free 5-day live cohort for senior marketers who need to prove AI ROI and move fast. Built for VPs and heads of marketing who feel stuck in the hype and need practical output. Spend one hour a day building three AI agents that automate real work and save 10+ hours a week.

HOW THE FOUNDER OF MORNING BREW BUILT A CLAUDE CONTENT MACHINE THAT NEVER RUNS OUT OF IDEAS (43 MINUTE VIDEO)

Alex Lieberman's Content Machine scans seven days of Slack, Notion, Gmail, and meeting notes, plus the accounts he follows on X and LinkedIn, then ranks 15 content ideas a day so the blank page never becomes the bottleneck. Six AI personas modeled on interviewers like Tim Ferriss and Howard Stern question him until they extract real specifics, and his voice-to-texted answers trace every sentence back to something he actually said. Before anything posts, a six-persona Writer's Council scores the draft and blocks it from going below a 9 out of 10.

HOW MUCH CREATIVE DEBT ARE YOU CARRYING?

Creative work needs recurring time on the calendar or it will always lose to urgent tasks. "Creative debt" is the cost of repeatedly delaying creative projects until avoiding them becomes part of your identity instead of a temporary choice. Treat creative projects like recurring commitments by scheduling dedicated time, reduce project scope, and keep momentum through small, consistent actions instead of waiting for the perfect moment. You should also remove pressure to prove ROI so creative work can exist without immediate business value. The goal is to stop delaying meaningful projects before postponement blocks future creative output.

WHY YOUR TOP KEYWORDS ARE QUIETLY LOSING VOLUME

HOW I (ACCIDENTALLY?) WENT FROM LIFECYCLE MARKETER TO PRODUCT MANAGER

A lifecycle marketer transitioned into a product manager role through embedded product work, not a planned switch. Leading iterative in-app projects and using AI to prototype solutions shifted ownership from execution to problem definition. Internal support helped formalize the move. The role change requires giving up solo execution and focusing on defining problems and aligning teams. Lifecycle skills translate well, especially prioritization and building user experiences.

AI SEO TIP: MICROSOFT CLARITY TOPIC INSIGHTS

Microsoft Clarity Topic Insights is a free AI visibility tool that shows how often your content is cited in AI-generated answers, how much it influences those answers, and which competitors are being cited.

10 CREATIVE WAYS TO WRITE WITH AI WITHOUT LOSING YOUR SOUL

Tips on how Ahrefs uses AI to create content, plus the experiments they've been running.

HOW MICHELOB ULTRA AND LEO MESSI PREPARED FOR THE MOST UNPREDICTABLE MARKETING MOMENT OF THE WORLD CUP

Michelob Ultra built its Messi tribute ad around 20 years of career accomplishments, letting the same creative work whether Argentina won or lost the final.

BRANDED SEARCH IS BECOMING A LESS RELIABLE PROXY FOR BRAND DEMAND

Branded search has long been a proxy for brand demand, but it's becoming less reliable. Data shows branded queries dropping even as demand holds steady, pointing to a measurement gap, not a demand decline. AI search is shifting decisions upstream, answering questions before users search for brands. The risk is misreading weaker search as weaker brands and underinvesting in brand building. Branded search still matters, but it should be one signal, not the source of truth.

DOES TOPICAL AUTHORITY MATTER IN AI SEARCH?

Topical authority still matters in AI search, with data from Semrush's analysis of 50,000+ brands showing AI answers develop category owners over time. In ChatGPT's June 2026 data, only 15.2% of categories had a clear owner, leaving 89.3% of AI search demand in categories without one. Category owners also showed stronger brand search volume, organic traffic, and authority. Build depth in core topics rather than chase broad content coverage.

WHAT EVERYONE GETS WRONG ABOUT CATEGORY CREATION

Category creation only works when it reflects a real job to be done instead of a new marketing label. Companies create confusion when they invent platform names that don't match a clear customer responsibility or workflow. It's better to create a new job to be done before naming a category, sell products as a suite when buyers purchase them separately, or lead with the product the market already understands and expand from there.

THOUGHTLESS FEATURES NEVER ADD UP TO A THOUGHTFUL PRODUCT

Teams ship “ham biscuit” features fast, solving surface problems but missing real user needs. Idea generators stay detached, copying competitors or AI outputs, while execution follows without question. The result is bloated products that hurt clarity and sales. Better products come from defining real workflows, not stacking features. Focus on the job to be done, validate outcomes, and design end-to-end experiences instead of isolated fixes.

HOW TO CHECK CHROME'S ACCESSIBILITY TREE

AI agents don't view websites like humans do. They rely on the Accessibility Tree, a machine-readable version of your page structure. Check yours in Chrome DevTools to see how agents interpret your content. Clean up headings, labels, links, and alt text to make your site easier for AI systems to understand and surface.

SUBJECTLINE.COM

This is a free email subject line tester that scores over 15M subject lines and helps improve email performance. Free accounts provide subject line history, score tracking, and AI-powered rewrites. Pro accounts ($9.99/year) add open rate predictions, industry benchmarks, and project organization tools.