Today's Guide to the Marketing Jungle from Social Media Examiner... | Presented by |  |
It's National Global Entrepreneurship Week, Pz... We see you out there, and we're literally here for you!
In today's edition:
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🗑️ Today's Tip of the Day is for Instagram
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🎯 Meta ads targeting tips
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✔️ ❌ A new competitive positioning analysis framework
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🤝 ⚖️ The right way to find strategic partners
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Big changes to Instagram hashtags
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Gemini comes to iPhone
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Perplexity enters the shopping game
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More LinkedIn Ads tools
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🗞️ Additional industry news from Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and more
Is your Instagram account bloated with inactive accounts? Are you worried these accounts may be skewing your metrics?
There's a quick way to clean up your followers list!
Check Your Deactivated Accounts
Open Instagram, view your profile, and then tap Followers.
Under the categories section, tap on Deactivated accounts to see a list of accounts that are deactivated.
Here, you can choose whether to remove each of these accounts or keep them on a case-by-case basis.
While you're at it, take some time to review those Flagged for Review accounts, too!
Today's tip was inspired by Social Media Examiner's Editorial team.
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Facebook and Instagram Ads Targeting Tips for 2025
Meta's approach to audience targeting has dramatically transformed over the past year.
For example, the platform removed hundreds of thousands of targeting options.
At the same time, Meta has continued to push advertisers toward using broader, AI-driven audience selection.
In this article, we break down the current targeting landscape so you can choose the best strategy for your needs.
The Impact of Account History and Data on Ad Optimization
One crucial factor in the success of Meta's AI ad features is the amount of historical data available in your account.
Accounts with more extensive advertising history and data points typically see better performance with AI-driven features.
This is particularly evident in Advantage Plus Audiences, where accounts with substantial historical data often see significantly better results than newer accounts or those with limited data.
Advantage Plus Audiences
Advantage Plus Audiences represents Meta's newest targeting solution. It allows advertisers to provide basic demographic suggestions while letting the AI handle most targeting decisions.
Through analysis of multiple accounts, ads expert Tara Zirker has observed an interesting pattern: these audiences often excel at generating leads but may underperform in final conversion rates.
This pattern appears in about 50% of accounts, making it crucial for advertisers to monitor lead generation and final conversion metrics when using this feature.
Broad Audiences
Despite initial skepticism from many advertisers, broad audiences have emerged as one of the most effective targeting approaches.
Zirker's extensive testing across various industries—from yoga studios to accountants to niche e-commerce categories—shows that broad targeting consistently delivers strong results and is successful in 70-80% of cases.
In fact, Zirker says that broad audience targeting is very effective for her own business, even though her audience is very narrow. She targets a very niche B2B audience of people who are spending less than five thousand dollars per month on their ads.
Pro Tip: When using broad audience targeting, resist the urge to add multiple demographic markers. Stick to an age range and add gender only when strictly necessary. Meta's algorithm handles the rest.
Lookalike Mashup Audiences
Zirker developed the lookalike mashup strategy to combat the declining effectiveness of traditional lookalike audiences.
Start with your best data sources, such as buyer lists or highly qualified leads.
Next, create a series of lookalike audiences from these high-value customer lists. You'll need:
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A 1% lookalike audience
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A 3% lookalike audience
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A 5% lookalike audience
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A 7% lookalike audience
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A 10% lookalike audience
When you have each of these lookalike audiences created, combine all five of them into a single mashup audience to use in a single ad set.
This approach often triggers Meta's algorithm, so the ads perform better than they would with individual lookalike audiences.
Today's advice is provided with insights from Tara Zirker, a featured guest on the Social Media Marketing Podcast.
The Strategic Value Framework: How to Use AI to Analyze Product-to-Market Fit Through Value & Defensibility
Do you know what people really think about your business? Wondering how AI can help you determine your real value so you can stand out in a noisy marketplace?
In this article, you'll discover how AI can help you make data-driven marketing decisions that resonate with your audience. And find a tool that makes the process easier!
This framework emerged from decades of experience across multiple technological transformations. It has proven its durability through these technological inflection points, making it particularly valuable for navigating the current AI revolution.
NOTE: This framework requires data collection, formatting, and anonymization to protect your brand and customer's details.
Use AI to Establish Your Value Dimension
You can't out-campaign a bad product-to-market fit.
If you don't have a good product-to-market fit and then infuse AI into your campaigns, you'll end up with something similar to executing an all-out campaign for snowblowers in Florida. You will have essentially amplified a path to campaign failure.
This is where the value dimension that establishes your product-to-market fit comes into play.
The value dimension examines how an organization's offerings compare to competitors.
Liza Adams breaks this analysis down into measurable components rather than relying on gut feelings. The scale includes three distinct levels.
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Base Level: You provide the same value as your competitors.
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Middle Tier: You are delivering incremental improvements.
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Top Tier: You offer order-of-magnitude improvements in price, unmet needs, scalability, and business transformation potential.
To understand which of these tiers your business occupies, you must define clear parameters for value based on differentiators such as:
The key is to uncover what your customers and target audience truly see as valuable by gathering customer data and pasting it into a spreadsheet or another format so that your AI can work with it:
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Customer reviews from online platforms like Amazon Reviews, Google Reviews, Facebook, and Gartner Peer Insights
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Customer surveys or interviews
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Slack conversations
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Excel spreadsheets
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HubSpot records
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Email communications
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Sales transcripts
The collection and formatting will take time, but the result will be a customer-supported value proposition.
When your data is collected, anonymized, and formatted, you can upload it and ask your AI to begin analyzing it based on a dimension such as customer sentiment.
Look at these reviews and identify the customers who have commented on customer service.
When the AI has segmented that pool of customers, you can prompt:
Based on this segment of comments, infer customer sentiment on a scale of 1 (highly dissatisfied) to 5 (extremely satisfied).
How to Establish Your Defensibility Dimension
The defensibility dimension assesses how difficult it would be for competitors to replicate your competitive advantages. Think of these competitive advantages as a moat protecting your business.
The defensibility scale includes three levels:
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Easy to Copy: Features that competitors could replicate in their next release
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Moderate Difficulty: Features that competitors could replicate with significant investment
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Hard to Copy: Features that would require competitors to invest in extraordinary resources or potential acquisition of your company
To find a genuinely sustainable competitive position, you'll need to look beyond technological advantages and consider details such as:
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Product ingredients or specs
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Partner ecosystems
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Deep vertical industry expertise
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Unique customer knowledge
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Brand strength
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Distribution channels
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Location advantages
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Proprietary recipes, data, or processes
You'll need a weighted scoring system to evaluate your defensive advantages and prioritize investments in strengthening your competitive position. For example, a food business might weight its defensive moats as:
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Ingredients: 50%
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Recipe: 40%
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Location: 10%
The Competitive Defensibility Analyzer: A Custom GPT Solution
Liza Adams has developed a free custom GPT called the Competitive Defensibility Analyzer to guide you through a systematic competitive defensibility evaluation process.
In the initial assessment phase, the tool:
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Identifies potential defensive moats
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Evaluates the strength of current positions
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Compares against competitor capabilities
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Suggests improvement opportunities
In the weighted analysis phase, the tool helps organizations:
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Weight the importance of different defensive elements
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Calculate overall defensibility scores
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Compare positions across market segments
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Identify strategic priorities
Once the data is prepared, the analysis typically takes about thirty minutes. The resulting analysis provides a starting point for deeper strategic discussions with leadership teams.
Today's advice is provided with insights from Liza Adams, a featured guest on the AI Explored podcast.
Ready to Discover Marketing Strategies That Work?
If you want to go deeper with your marketing then check out the Social Media Marketing Podcast.
Publishing weekly since 2012, the Social Media Marketing Podcast has been helping marketers navigate the constantly changing marketing jungle with expert interviews from marketing pros.
But don't let the name fool you. This show is about a lot more than just social media marketing. With over 640 episodes and millions of downloads each year, this show is a trusted source for marketers around the world.
Check out the Social Media Marketing Podcast now.
Developing Strategic Partnerships That Scale With Less Effort: Part 1
Are your marketing efforts falling flat? Wondering how to build meaningful business relationships to help your business grow?
In this article, you'll discover the first steps in a proven process for building genuine partnerships that benefit both parties and their shared audience.
4 Types of Scalable Strategic Partnerships to Consider
Strategic partnerships extend far beyond short-term transactions, simple business arrangements, or formal agreements. These relationships can take many forms, each serving different purposes and offering unique benefits to the participants.
Through her years of experience, Pamela Slim has identified four distinct categories of partnerships that can transform a business's growth trajectory.
Ecosystem Partnerships
The first category, which Slim calls ecosystem partnerships, encompasses broad relationships that include influencers and business connections.
PB&J Partnerships
PB&J partnerships (peanut butter and jelly) form between providers offering complementary but non-competitive services. For instance, a business coach might develop strong relationships with accountants, graphic designers, web developers, copywriters, and IP attorneys.
Each professional serves the same clients in complementary ways, creating a comprehensive support system for their shared customers.
Referral Partnerships
The world of referral partnerships represents yet another vital category in this ecosystem. These arrangements, which can be either formal or informal, develop organically as service providers prove their value and reliability to each other over time.
The key to successful referral partnerships lies in the mutual trust and understanding that develops through consistently delivering high-quality services to referred clients.
Brand Partnerships
The fourth significant category often takes the form of content collaborations or long-term strategic alliances. These partnerships allow both parties to reach new audiences and create value in ways they couldn't achieve independently.
Start With a Firm Foundation for Successful Partnerships
Before diving into the tactical aspects of building partnerships, it's essential to understand the fundamental principles that underpin successful collaborative relationships.
The first block in your foundation is absolute clarity about your business's mission, values, and objectives. This clarity isn't just about having a well-written mission statement; it's about deeply understanding why you're in business and what transformation you aim to create for your clients.
The next block is a clear understanding of your ideal customer. Rather than defining your audience through traditional demographic markers like age, income, or location, Slim advocates for understanding them through their problems, challenges, and aspirations.
For example, suppose you're working with business owners who want to scale through intellectual property. In that case, you need to understand not just their surface-level needs but the entire journey they're on and all the touchpoints where they will seek help along the way so that you can have partnerships ready to serve them.
Slim has developed a comprehensive framework called the Ecosystem Wheel, which places your ideal client at the center and maps out all the online and offline places where they seek solutions to their challenges and connect with others facing similar challenges.
The ecosystem wheel extends beyond digital spaces or professional networks. It encompasses associations, conferences, local government initiatives, nonprofits, and other gathering places where your ideal clients seek solutions.
Understanding this broader ecosystem in which your business operates is crucial. Each section of the Ecosystem Wheel represents a different avenue for reaching and serving your target audience. Think of each space as a place where you can find potential partners from the four categories above.
Considering this broad ecosystem of potential partners, think about it like casting a wide net. This net encompasses a multitude of potential partners. Now, your task is to discern which potential partners make sense for your clients and your business.
Narrow the field to prospective partners that A) offer a service of value to your customers and B) the potential for growth in your own business through reciprocating referrals.
Now, you're ready to begin making contact and building genuine, human-led relationships.
That's it for part 1! Check Monday's newsletter for part 2.
Today's advice is provided with insights from Pamela Slim, a featured guest on the Social Media Marketing Podcast.
Google Gemini for iPhone: Google has released its new Gemini app for iPhone users globally through the App Store. The free application features a minimalist design centered around a chat interface and conversation history. Users can interact with the Gemini AI using text input, voice commands, or by sharing images through their camera. The functionality mirrors users' access through the Google app's Gemini section or the Gemini website. It also includes Gemini Live, a new feature that provides a more interactive conversational experience comparable to ChatGPT's voice mode. Source: The Verge
Instagram Followers Cleanup: A new category called 'Deactivated account' identifies accounts that have been deactivated so users can easily spot and remove them from their followers list. Source: Lindsey Gamble via Threads
Instagram Hashtag Changes: Multiple sources report that the platform will remove the option to follow hashtags on December 13, 2024, and that hashtags you follow will no longer be visible in your feed. Source: Yahoo Finance
Snap Lens API Updates: One new API enables developers to create Lenses that directly interface with hosted multi-modal LLMs, and an Image Spatialization API uses generative AI to transform 2D images into 3D formats. Developers can integrate this API into their Lenses to generate realistic 3D effects that create an immersive experience with spatial anchors, basic location functionality, Lens unlock, and more. Source: Snap
Customized Feeds on Threads: Threads is testing a new customizable feed feature. The new functionality lets users switch between different feed options by pulling down the home screen to view and create personalized feeds focused on specific topics and people. Source: Moserri via Threads
Threads Social Graph: The platform announced it is removing the Instagram graph import from the Threads onboarding flow. Now, when you create a new account, you won't automatically follow the same accounts on Threads as you do on Instagram. Source: Moserri via Threads
Instagram Inbox Filters: A test feature allows you to filter notifications or messages by people you follow, followers, businesses, verified accounts, creators, and subscribers. Source: @Mosseri via Threads
Instagram Recommendations: Instagram has announced they are working on a new feature that allows all users to reset their content recommendations across multiple features, including Explore, Reels, and Feed, with just a few taps. After resetting, recommendations will gradually become personalized based on users' interactions with content and accounts. During the reset process, users can review and unfollow accounts that share unwanted content. Source: Facebook
More Meta AI Tools: Meta confirmed it is establishing a new product unit focused on developing AI tools specifically for the 200 million businesses using their applications. This strategic move supports Meta's core advertising business by investing in tools that help businesses better interact with their customers on Meta's platforms. One example of these tools is Meta's business AI chatbot, which enables a business to create its own AI chatbots for customer communication and transactions through WhatsApp and Messenger. Source: Axios
Shopping on Perplexity: Perplexity has launched a new AI-powered shopping experience that enables users to research and purchase products directly through their platform. Perplexity Pro users in the United States can use the Buy with Pro feature for one-click checkout on select products from participating merchants, with free shipping included. The Snap to Shop visual search tool lets users find products by taking photos of items they're interested in. Perplexity also provides unbiased product recommendations through easy-to-read product cards powered by integrations, including Shopify for U.S. shipping merchants. Finally, the company has launched a Merchant Program that allows large retailers to share product specifications, offering benefits such as increased product visibility, payment integrations, free API access, and a custom dashboard for tracking search trends. The new shopping experience will expand to additional markets following the U.S. launch, with participating merchants receiving access to one-click checkout integration and tools to build Perplexity-powered search experiences. Interested retailers can join the free Merchant Program by completing a signup form for more information. Source: Perplexity
X Video Experience: iOS users can now zoom into videos on the platform. Source: @XDaily via X
LinkedIn Sales Navigator Lead IQ: Lead IQ, a new feature, provides instant summaries of a lead's experience, achievements, interests, commonalities, and activities using LinkedIn's data. The tool reduces research time by condensing hours of research into quick summaries and helps sales professionals prepare for unexpected meeting participants. Account IQ, introduced last year, has been enhanced to provide more detailed, personalized insights about how a solution fits a target account's needs. Source: LinkedIn
Meta Messenger Calls: AI-generated backgrounds will soon be available for video calls, accessible through the effects icon in the sidebar. HD video calls will be enabled by default on Wi-Fi connections, with an option to enable it for cellular data in call settings. New background noise suppression and voice isolation features can be activated through call settings. Users can now leave audio or video messages when calls go unanswered by using the "Record message" button. Hands-free calling and messaging are being added through Siri integration, allowing users to send messages and make calls using voice commands. Source: Facebook
Custom Feeds on Threads: Users can now create custom feeds by searching for topics and using the three-dot menu to select "Create new feed." Custom feeds can also be created from user profiles by tapping the three-dot menu and selecting "Add to feed." Additional topics and profiles can be added to existing feeds through the three-dot menu by selecting "Add to feed." Users can switch between For you, Following, and custom feeds by pulling down on the home screen. Source: Threads via Threads
Text Formatting on YouTube: A text formatting update has been launched for Studio descriptions. The update relocates bold, italic, and strikethrough text options to the bottom left corner of the description editing field in Studio. The update has been fully launched on mobile platforms and is being rolled out to desktop. Source: YouTube
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