COMING AT YOU THE WEEK OF 5.24.22

What’s crackalackin?!

Last week, I asked you guys to vent to me, and many of you did. I was seriously excited to hear from you guys because:

1. it’s proof that on the other side of these emails sit real people—not to mention really cool people
2. it gave us a chance to talk about the problems we struggle with in marketing and careers

I’d love to hear more from you. Hit ‘reply’ and tell me what’s difficult about marketing for you. I’m also willing to offer any advice I can muster.

Oh, and in case you’re absolutely dying to see the results of last week’s poll… I asked how you guys felt about karaoke aaaand, drumroll please 🥁

53% responded with a 😍
46% responded with a 😡

~ Hayley

This week’s most important Marketing News

WHATSAPP BUSINESS HAS A NEW API AND A NEW FEATURE FOR SENDING RECURRING MESSAGES

Their new API for the WhatsApp Business Platform is cloud-based and available to all businesses. It’s meant to simplify setting up WhatsApp.

They’re also introducing a new WhatsApp feature, Recurring Notifications. It allows customers to opt-in to receive notifications from your organization for promotions, new products, etc. That feature will also become available to business accounts on Instagram later this year (in Fall).

Facebook also reminded us that they have click-to-message ads that encourage people to message your brand.

INSTAGRAM IS TESTING A FEATURE THAT HIDES SOME OF AN ACCOUNT’S STORIES

Say you post 20 stories in 24 hours, some accounts will only be served a few of those If that’s the case, then a small “show more” button will be at the top of the story, giving them the option to see the other 15. I hope this test fails 😅

SENATE IS PROPOSING A BILL THAT WOULD AFFECT THE AD ECOSYSTEM

Ads that appear on publisher websites have two parties involved in placing their ads, the publisher (or the site) and the advertiser. Right now, there are a few big companies who act as middleman for both publishers AND advertisers. Those supporting the bill say that’s a conflict of interest, and that it allows large companies to play the game to their advantage.

The bill says business can only be one of these three things (but right now certain companies are acting as two or more of them):

supply-side brokers selling publisher ad space
demand-side brokers selling ads
ad exchanges connecting buyers and sellers

If the bill passes, then Google, Amazon, and Facebook would have to completely rework their ad structure.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) said, “This legislation is intended to punish a few companies, but the effects would reverberate across the digital economy, affecting advertisers large and small as well as the American public.”

Remember, bill = proposed law (as in, this is not a real law yet).

THE TOPIC OF FAKE ACCOUNTS CAUSED DRAMA AROUND THE ELON MUSK’S DEAL TO BUY TWITTER

Here’s the rundown:

Elon said cleaning up Twitter from bots would be important to him
Twitter released that they believed less than 5% of Twitter accounts were spam or fake (that was a lot less than Musk—and others—believed)
Elon said their deal was on hold
A 3rd party, Sparktoro, did an analysis to see how many bots Twitter has. Their research showed 19% of accounts to be fake, and they found that of the Twitter accounts following @elonmusk, 70% were bots.
Twitter released a statement saying they’re still committed to the deal with Elon

GOOGLE IS TESTING SOME SEARCH AD LABEL VARIATIONS

You know how search ads always have some differentiating pieces so a user can tell what’s an organic result and what’s an ad? Google is testing a few different ways of saying “this is an ad.”

RESOURCES

Switchboard is a collaboration tool that allows teams to work remotely, simultaneously.

Wayback Machine can get you around paywalls. So if a site asks for $2/month to read their content, then you plug the article’s URL into the Wayback Machine and BAM. You’ve got it, free of charge.

HIGHLIGHTS FRom “HOW TO INCREASE YOUR ATTENTION SPAN”

Check out these five tips that Deprocrastination shares in their article, How to increase your attention span.

(What you see here 👇 is my skimmable version of their tips. And yes, it’s ironic to write a Reader’s Digest version of an article that’s all about getting people to focus longer.)

One: minimize cues for switching

Deprocrastination explains that interruptions are waves 👋 to our brains, inviting us to switch from our current focus to a new one. The less you switch, the longer your attention span.

There are external interruptions (notifications, environmental sounds, etc.) and internal interruptions (thoughts).

To reduce the EXTERNAL:

Turn on Do Not Disturb mode
Adjust your device settings to reduce notifications in general

To reduce the INTERNAL:

write down your thoughts and revisit them later

My personal fave is to say, “Hey Siri, remind me Monday at 10am to Slack Jasmin about the team meeting.” Speaking to Siri is the least likely to derail me. Plus, it’s effective at getting me to perform the action, but on my own time terms.

Two: make switching tasks harder

We often switch tasks when we’re bored and want immediate gratification. I usually want fast entertainment from my phone or the instant happiness that a rice crispy treat can offer me. You want to make those distractions impossible to immediately gratify.

Work in a public place where you can’t walk to your pantry whenever you want
Leave your phone in the car
Work in a public space where you’ll be embarrassed to be seen slacking off on your phone

Three: single-task (mostly)

Multitasking is an illusion—our brains can’t focus on more than one task. BUT, our brains can get a kick out of multitasking.

“Individuals report that enjoyment is a factor in Internet-based multitasking and that performing additional tasks while watching TV ads increases overall task enjoyment.”

— Adam Gazzely, The Distracted Mind

We can use that to our advantage. If you turn on the TV while working on a mindless task, like updating a spreadsheet, multitasking might benefit you. It might get you to start a task that you would have procrastinated for days.

But if you’re trying to write, brainstorm, or really do any critical thinking—you’ve gotta single task.

Each day I choose my most important deep-thinking task. Then, I work on it the first 1.5 – 2 hours of the day. I close out all other tabs, hide my phone, and only do that single task.

Four: practice redirecting attention

Just because we receive an interruption (a visual/audible cue or a thought), doesn’t mean that we have to become distracted. The distraction comes when we engage with the interruption.

👆That’s another good lesson from Adam Gazzaley.

Mindfulness exercises focus on noticing thoughts and emotions without dwelling on them—like watching a small toy boat float past you in a stream. If you start doing mindfulness or meditation sessions, you’ll get better at redirecting your attention.

Five: work in sessions

Deprocrastination encourages you to “lean into natural rhythms.” They recommend these work rhythms:

(work 25 minutes + break 5 mins) x 3 = a 90-minute session

work 45 minutes + break 5 minutes + work 45 minute + break 5 minutes = a 95-minute session

I’ve seen these techniques make me more productive, and I hope they work for you.

INTERESTING STUFF

🎸 Sage is an artificially intelligent band recommender. It can tell you what bands you’ll like, and I thought my results were pretty 👌

🐴 OOO emails written by Iceland’s horses are at the heart of an entertaining and well-executed campaign by Visit Iceland.

📞 WasteRussianTime.today by visiting that site and participating in civil intervention against war. That sounds fancy, but the heart of it is prank calling a Russian official. The idea is to waste Russian officials’ time, so they have less attention for invading Ukraine.

👃 Bringing scent to the metaverse would be cool, and there are people working on it.

👫 This commercial is a trailer for a future commercial, I think. It features the love life of Flo from Progressive. And it is so interesting to me that a character made purely for advertising has earned our affection and interest the way Flo has.

🌯 Edible tape has been invented. I wish it was prettier; but still, I’m intrigued.

LET’S GET VISUAL