📊 Sundar Pichai on The Future of Search

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→ CEO Sundar Pichai hinted at how he sees Search growing in the next decade. He takes stock of Bard and its relationship to / integration with Search, but also comments on the commercial potential for LLMs, and more. TLDR; he says "the experience will evolve substantively over the next decade"— if you subscribe to WSJ, read the whole article here;

→ Here’s a forum discussion on whether the March 2023 Core Algo update impacted local search rankings. Variety of experiences, maybe some match with yours. Many experienced some fluctuation;

→ via @rustybrick: "Google announced that it would deprecate non-last-click rules-based attribution models in Google Ads and Google Analytics starting in June 2023 and then completely by September 2023." First-click. Linear. Time decay. Position-based. If you use any of these models in Google ads, you'll basically be hooped on anything that isn't last-click.

There's one particular L a lot of successful people have taken in their own way: not prioritizing reputation management before it's too late. And by then, you might be losing more conversions than you can afford— a tale as old as time. Tragic.

This piece by SEJ defines online reputation management as "the process of shaping and controlling the narrative around your brand online," and suggests SEO can play a bigger role in this vital process than we might think. But it makes sense, yeah? I mean, it’s about:

→ making sure potential customers find positive messages about the brand when they search

and

→ influencing the front page of SERPs, as well as articles in social media feeds and News results

Sounds like a job for your SEO.
The piece provides some really sound insight on how to deal with negative reviews, including the possibility of getting rid of them (slim odds sadly) and how to reply. Push your narrative, and let the satisfied customers do that, too. Don’t let the haters bring you down.

The article drops 6 concrete tips for SEOs to use their skills to manage brand rep. As usual, I’ll give three, and you can click that link and read the rest. Sound good?

Control The Front Page: as an SEO, you were born for this.

Set Up A Google Business Profile: if you’re not already on this, get on it. Often, the GBP listing is the first one a potential customer sees. Keep your info up to date and keep track of how people are engaging.

Reviews: "Good reputation management is about effectively dealing with negative attention as much as positive. A negative review can be responded to on Google Business Profile, allowing your brand to turn a negative experience into a positive one."

→ This AdWeek piece- What’s Next for AI and Marketing- gives a proper survey of the range of responses and reactions to AI in the world of all things digital (especially marketing, of course). Whether it's skeptics/haters/naysayers demanding a moratorium on AI development or the optimists and opportunists pushing full steam ahead, it's rare to land on a measured, unbiased opinion at the moment. AI and its impacts on media buying, processes and workflows, branding and packaging, personalization, research, and lots more (including thought leadership) are discussed by a huge range of high-achieving executives and pros. Worth a read IMO.

→ Just like ChatGPT leveled up with its plugin revolution, looks like Bing will open to third-party plugins soon. More on this as it develops, obvs.

→ Another big move by Microsoft, as Bing is now available inside any app via SwiftKey keyboard— using the keyboard pretty much makes the Bing app way less useful, as the Bing chatbot will be integrated into the keyboard itself to help with rewriting in various tones, or searching for info.

→ Zuck continues his hard pivot to AI w/ news that Meta’s generative AI will debut in 2023, which will be integrated into Facebook and Instagram and could definitely offer advertisers improved ad targeting and effectiveness— this interview with Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth drops the details on the use of some of the automatic AI-based enhancements- like brightness adjustments, aspect ratio alternatives, shifting text placement, etc.- which will be geared to improve campaign performance; Meta Verified is taking some heat for giving away the identities of otherwise pseudonymous sex workers;

→ TikTok experiencing another "how the mighty have fallen" moment— in its ban era and struggling to enlist any credible U.S. merchants for its new shopping services… would not have predicted that this time last year;

→ A new Warrior enters the ring: ByteDance’s own TikTok competitor Lemon8 is surging in the US; with 17M downloads in under 3 years, it’s basically another TikTok but with still images, too, giving it components of both Instagram and Pinterest;

→ Twitter turmoil continues at all sorts of levels; whether it’s the return of Putin & co. complete with Musk’s claim that determining what counts as propaganda will be the responsibility of users and Community Notes; some are asking if the platform will be able to resist the authoritarian pressure of governments in Russia, India, and China— especially given Musk’s deep financial interests in the latter twos’ markets; the functional breakdown of privacy in Twitter Circles; Twitter Blue is also trying to figure out how to balance its 50% Fewer Ads promise with losing the money that Twitter generates from ads— glad that’s not my job lol; Finally, Twitter has added a few Branding Features for marketers like Branded Likes, "Hashfetti," and "Hashmojis"; finally, if you missed the epic Substack saga, it’s worth knowing what exactly went down (even though it seems to be water under the bridge… for now;

→ Called this BTW / *time machine sound effect*

📊 Sundar Pichai on The Future of Search

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👀 AI Insight: Instant Video Coming Soon?

📈 Bard and Bing Both Level Up

⚠️ Net Worth Update: Down $1757 (-0.04%)

📈📈 Revenue is up $12.2k in March

❌ Massive Ls: Sites That Failed to Fool Google

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