Skip to main content

EP. 52- What’s Up THIS WEEK – 01/09/2024

Michael GuinooJanuary 9, 2024July 14th, 20251 min read

In this week’s “What’s Up this Week” episode, host Jay Schwedelson provides updates on recent changes and trends in marketing platforms like Twitter (now Elon Musk’s X), LinkedIn, and more. He discusses how shifts in one platform create ripple effects across other platforms, the decline in X’s performance, LinkedIn’s increasing ad costs, and the growth of AI-generated content.

Main Discussion Points:

– X (formerly Twitter) has seen drops in performance and major brands pulling back spend. They cut verification costs to attract small biz customers.

– The shifts with X have led to more ad dollars moving to LinkedIn. LinkedIn ad costs are up 30% in some cases.

– LinkedIn is prioritizing AI-generated “collaborative articles” as top traffic drivers. Interacting with these articles can boost reach/engagement.

– It’s the time of year when most people bail on New Year’s resolutions – 23% in the first week of January and 43% by end of January.

And MASSIVE thank you to our Sponsor, Marigold!!

Marigold is a relationship marketing platform designed to help you acquire new customers and turn them into superfans with their best-in-class loyalty solutions. Don’t take my word for it though, American Airlines, Honeybaked Ham, Title Boxing, and Notre Dame University are also customers!

Regardless of your size, check out Marigold today to get the solution you need to grow your business!

Transcript
Jay Schwedelson:

Foreign welcome back to what's up this Week from do this. Not that this is a super short episode where we go through what's happening this week.

And then we release our episode on Wednesdays of Ask Us Anything, which is also super short.

And then check out on Fridays, our longer episodes, about 10 minutes, where we go through tactics and quick wins and marketing, things that you may want to consider. But so what is going on this week?

Well, as this new year unfolds, there's been lots of different changes to different marketing channels, changes to different platforms. And one of the platforms, and by the way, they all have, they all have like a ripple effect on each other. I'll explain to you what I mean.

So one of the platforms that's obviously been going through the most change has been X, which you used to be called Twitter. I've been on Twitter and X forever. I will tell you that. Personally, I'm seeing the performance drop significantly for what we're doing on there.

So we're looking at lots of other platforms for ourselves. But I think others are also seeing different types of impacts.

Lots of major brands have dramatically cut back on their spending and X is trying to drive, you know, revenue from all sorts of new places. So one of the changes just this week that X is rolling out is that they are cutting their price on corporate verification.

So as a business, your business can get verified on X. And I'll tell you why this is important in a minute because you may be like, who cares about X? I'm not even on X. It doesn't matter to me.

But I'm going to tell you the ripple effect it has for other channels. So X is cutting their verification costs to get your brand verified because you could pay your brand verified on, on Twitter X.

And they're really focusing on small businesses. So small businesses that used to want to get that verification check mark next to their brand, and for a brand, it's not blue, it's actually gold.

But for brands that wanted to get that, small businesses that want to get that gold check mark next to their brand, they would have to pay thousand dollars a month. And this thousand dollars a month got all sorts of different little benefits here and there, whatever.

And they're slashing that from $1,000 a month to $200 a month for small businesses.

And I think the biggest benefit is that people in your organization that are tied to that account, they also automatically get a blue check mark of verification as part of this corporate verification. So it goes from $1,000 to $200 a month, because they're trying very, very hard to get small businesses to, to be spending money on their platform.

Now why does that matter? Who cares, right? Who cares about getting verified on Twitter or X? I think, honestly, I don't think there's a lot of value there.

But the platform that's really benefiting the most from some of the changes on X is LinkedIn. LinkedIn has actually seen a lot of ad dollars move over to it. And whether this is good or bad, we could debate it, right?

Because all these ad dollars have moved over to it. The Financial Times is actually reporting that the cost of running ads on LinkedIn has gone up as much as 30% for lots of their different ad units.

Now we run a ton of ads on LinkedIn and I will tell you, they work for the most part, they work really, really well, depending on which ad units you're running. But we're seeing more and more of a migration over to LinkedIn in terms of ad spend from X.

Now one of the things that LinkedIn also announced, what I think that going into this year, which is really valuable for all of us, has nothing to do with spending any money, has to do with what content LinkedIn is prioritizing. So in their most in Microsoft owns LinkedIn.

And in their most recent quarterly announcement, their recent quarterly statement, Microsoft said this about LinkedIn.

It says, we continue to use AI to help our members and customers connect to opportunities and tap into experiences of Experts on the LinkedIn platform. This is the key part. Our AI powered collaborative articles are now the fastest growing traffic driver to LinkedIn.

What's going on is LinkedIn is prioritizing the AI collaborative articles that you probably have been seeing all over LinkedIn. Why? Because they're the cheapest form of content for LinkedIn to create, because it's literally being created by AI.

So if you're trying to grow your network and you want your interactions, your likes and your comments to be seen, okay, by the widest audience possible, what you want to be doing, I mean literally, Microsoft and LinkedIn have told you what to do. You want to be interacting, okay, Commenting and liking on the collaborative articles that are all being written by AI. How do you do that?

Go to Google. Okay, Go to Google and you type in this LinkedIn collaborative articles.

Click on the link, it'll take you to all the collaborative articles, all the AI written articles that are on LinkedIn and those are the content pieces that you want to be interacting with, liking commenting, whatever, because they're, they're being circulated the most by LinkedIn.

And by the way, if you see people with these top community voice badges on their profiles, now that they're being listed as a top community voice person or whatever, that is 100% related to those people's interactions with these collaborative articles. These AI generated collaborative articles. So if you want one of those badges, this is how you get there. It takes time, but this is how you get there.

So this kind of trickle down effect from X having its issues to LinkedIn getting more juice to these collaborative articles, it all matters. It all adds up. It really does. So what else is going on this week? That's a totally fair question.

This is the week of the year where everybody completely bails on their New Year's resolutions. I saw this and it made me think about myself. And this is like, you know, everybody bails on their resolutions, but.

But I saw this stat from Ohio State University and it says that 23% of people quit their New Year's resolutions by the end of the first week of the year and 43% quit their resolutions by the end of January. Of course they do. Everybody quits. It's just what people do.

I was at the gym right after New Year's, okay, in the morning and there was a boatload of people. And then I was at the gym today. There was like, nobody. And this is what we do. We're all quitters. It's fantastic.

Which is why you need to reverse things. You need to say things like, this year I'm going to eat more cheese. That's my goal. And then you will accomplish your goal. Right?

So don't feel bad if you've quit on your New Year's resolution. So is everybody else who cares? And listen, what should you check out? Check out our episode or ask us anything that comes out on Wednesdays.

Please check out our episode on Fridays and also visit jschwettleson.com I'm now on Instagram and that is my full name at jschwettleson. Hit me up there and check out Guru Events. And thanks for being here. You did it. You made it to the end. Nice, but the party's not over.

Subscribe to make sure you get the latest episode each week for more actionable tips and a little chaos from today's top marketers. And hook us up with a five star review. If this wasn't the worst podcast of all time.

Lastly, if you want access to the best virtual marketing events that are also 100% free, visit guru events.com so you can hear from the world's top marketers like Daymond John, Martha Stewart and me. Guruvents.com Check it out.

Next Post

Leave a Reply

COPYRIGHT 2025 JAY SCHWEDELSON   |   Privacy Policy

Transcript
Jay Schwedelson:

Foreign welcome back to what's up this Week from do this. Not that this is a super short episode where we go through what's happening this week.

And then we release our episode on Wednesdays of Ask Us Anything, which is also super short.

And then check out on Fridays, our longer episodes, about 10 minutes, where we go through tactics and quick wins and marketing, things that you may want to consider. But so what is going on this week?

Well, as this new year unfolds, there's been lots of different changes to different marketing channels, changes to different platforms. And one of the platforms, and by the way, they all have, they all have like a ripple effect on each other. I'll explain to you what I mean.

So one of the platforms that's obviously been going through the most change has been X, which you used to be called Twitter. I've been on Twitter and X forever. I will tell you that. Personally, I'm seeing the performance drop significantly for what we're doing on there.

So we're looking at lots of other platforms for ourselves. But I think others are also seeing different types of impacts.

Lots of major brands have dramatically cut back on their spending and X is trying to drive, you know, revenue from all sorts of new places. So one of the changes just this week that X is rolling out is that they are cutting their price on corporate verification.

So as a business, your business can get verified on X. And I'll tell you why this is important in a minute because you may be like, who cares about X? I'm not even on X. It doesn't matter to me.

But I'm going to tell you the ripple effect it has for other channels. So X is cutting their verification costs to get your brand verified because you could pay your brand verified on, on Twitter X.

And they're really focusing on small businesses. So small businesses that used to want to get that verification check mark next to their brand, and for a brand, it's not blue, it's actually gold.

But for brands that wanted to get that, small businesses that want to get that gold check mark next to their brand, they would have to pay thousand dollars a month. And this thousand dollars a month got all sorts of different little benefits here and there, whatever.

And they're slashing that from $1,000 a month to $200 a month for small businesses.

And I think the biggest benefit is that people in your organization that are tied to that account, they also automatically get a blue check mark of verification as part of this corporate verification. So it goes from $1,000 to $200 a month, because they're trying very, very hard to get small businesses to, to be spending money on their platform.

Now why does that matter? Who cares, right? Who cares about getting verified on Twitter or X? I think, honestly, I don't think there's a lot of value there.

But the platform that's really benefiting the most from some of the changes on X is LinkedIn. LinkedIn has actually seen a lot of ad dollars move over to it. And whether this is good or bad, we could debate it, right?

Because all these ad dollars have moved over to it. The Financial Times is actually reporting that the cost of running ads on LinkedIn has gone up as much as 30% for lots of their different ad units.

Now we run a ton of ads on LinkedIn and I will tell you, they work for the most part, they work really, really well, depending on which ad units you're running. But we're seeing more and more of a migration over to LinkedIn in terms of ad spend from X.

Now one of the things that LinkedIn also announced, what I think that going into this year, which is really valuable for all of us, has nothing to do with spending any money, has to do with what content LinkedIn is prioritizing. So in their most in Microsoft owns LinkedIn.

And in their most recent quarterly announcement, their recent quarterly statement, Microsoft said this about LinkedIn.

It says, we continue to use AI to help our members and customers connect to opportunities and tap into experiences of Experts on the LinkedIn platform. This is the key part. Our AI powered collaborative articles are now the fastest growing traffic driver to LinkedIn.

What's going on is LinkedIn is prioritizing the AI collaborative articles that you probably have been seeing all over LinkedIn. Why? Because they're the cheapest form of content for LinkedIn to create, because it's literally being created by AI.

So if you're trying to grow your network and you want your interactions, your likes and your comments to be seen, okay, by the widest audience possible, what you want to be doing, I mean literally, Microsoft and LinkedIn have told you what to do. You want to be interacting, okay, Commenting and liking on the collaborative articles that are all being written by AI. How do you do that?

Go to Google. Okay, Go to Google and you type in this LinkedIn collaborative articles.

Click on the link, it'll take you to all the collaborative articles, all the AI written articles that are on LinkedIn and those are the content pieces that you want to be interacting with, liking commenting, whatever, because they're, they're being circulated the most by LinkedIn.

And by the way, if you see people with these top community voice badges on their profiles, now that they're being listed as a top community voice person or whatever, that is 100% related to those people's interactions with these collaborative articles. These AI generated collaborative articles. So if you want one of those badges, this is how you get there. It takes time, but this is how you get there.

So this kind of trickle down effect from X having its issues to LinkedIn getting more juice to these collaborative articles, it all matters. It all adds up. It really does. So what else is going on this week? That's a totally fair question.

This is the week of the year where everybody completely bails on their New Year's resolutions. I saw this and it made me think about myself. And this is like, you know, everybody bails on their resolutions, but.

But I saw this stat from Ohio State University and it says that 23% of people quit their New Year's resolutions by the end of the first week of the year and 43% quit their resolutions by the end of January. Of course they do. Everybody quits. It's just what people do.

I was at the gym right after New Year's, okay, in the morning and there was a boatload of people. And then I was at the gym today. There was like, nobody. And this is what we do. We're all quitters. It's fantastic.

Which is why you need to reverse things. You need to say things like, this year I'm going to eat more cheese. That's my goal. And then you will accomplish your goal. Right?

So don't feel bad if you've quit on your New Year's resolution. So is everybody else who cares? And listen, what should you check out? Check out our episode or ask us anything that comes out on Wednesdays.

Please check out our episode on Fridays and also visit jschwettleson.com I'm now on Instagram and that is my full name at jschwettleson. Hit me up there and check out Guru Events. And thanks for being here. You did it. You made it to the end. Nice, but the party's not over.

Subscribe to make sure you get the latest episode each week for more actionable tips and a little chaos from today's top marketers. And hook us up with a five star review. If this wasn't the worst podcast of all time.

Lastly, if you want access to the best virtual marketing events that are also 100% free, visit guru events.com so you can hear from the world's top marketers like Daymond John, Martha Stewart and me. Guruvents.com Check it out.