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It’s National 🫖 Hot Tea Day, Reader! Earl Grey, please. No sugar, no milk.

In today’s edition:

• Today's 👉 Tip of the Day is for email strategy

• LinkedIn 📊 content for business leaders

• 📣 Industry news from OpenAI, Instagram, and X/Twitter.

Looking for a unique way to build your email list? 

Automate a Facebook Messenger Giveaway

Once set up, Messenger bots can choose your winners, notify them, and start new giveaways every 24 hours without you lifting a finger. 

First, offer a small but unique prize that attracts your target customers, like something personalized from your business. You’ll also want to set up a special landing page to let winners redeem their prizes.

Next, build a messenger bot flow that walks people through entering, determines if they already entered, captures their email address, and chooses and contacts winners with details about redemption. Then, connect your email provider with your bot platform so the email addresses are automatically captured for you. Because Facebook can pre-fill email addresses, people can tap to enter, increasing your conversions!   

Finally, run a Facebook messenger ad pointing to the bot flow to get entrants.

Today's tip is inspired by Steve Chou.

T Minus 5 Weeks and Counting…

On February 18th, marketers from around the world will come together for our 11th annual Social Media Marketing World.

Will you be joining them? 

"I came away incredibly empowered and reinvigorated for my work! At the time, I was fighting imposter syndrome. I came away with a million ideas and new/creative ways to approach my work. My business has since doubled in size (revenue) and I’m a much more confident entrepreneur and storyteller," said Emily Rae Schutte.

Today is the last day to save $500 on your All-Access ticket.

I want to learn… and save!

Content Strategy for Business Owners and Executives on LinkedIn

A business leader or executive is the number one marketing asset any company has—they explain the value of their company and how it fits into a particular industry. 

When a business owner or executive contributes to relevant conversations happening online in real-time, their authority makes people want to know more.

To fully leverage LinkedIn, a business leader needs to go beyond merely maintaining a profile, sporadically engaging with a few posts in the feed every few weeks, and hitting repost on others’ content. When you hit repost, only 1% of your audience will see that content. 

Instead, make it a weekly goal to consistently create and share original content that provides your unique insights and foresight.

5 Ways to Share Original Content and Unique Insights

As a leader, you have a unique vision and possess insights into emerging trends and data that aren’t obvious to others.

Your knowledge and vision offer rare leadership foresight that your audience, partners, and talent want access to. Dedicate time weekly to tap into those insights and craft content that provides your authentic voice on provocative topics and trends.

Here are some tips to help you create original, thoughtful content as a business leader on LinkedIn:

• Share your insights on industry trends and emerging issues. Tie them to strategic considerations.

• Tap into your experience to discuss valuable leadership, management, and business philosophy lessons.

• Summarize key concepts from the books you're reading and relate them to business leadership.

• Discuss provocative topics and weigh in thoughtfully on things like AI, remote work, inclusion, etc.

• Open up about the challenges you’re facing. You don’t always have to be the smartest person in the room or have all the answers. But being vulnerable, curious, and honest can elicit engagement and make you a relatable figurehead.

Why it Works

As an active executive on LinkedIn, you can attract and meet key audiences and decision-makers your traditional marketing content isn’t reaching. An engaging LinkedIn presence conveys your competence and confidence to these people

Today's advice is provided with insights from Richard Bliss, a featured speaker at Social Media Marketing World.

LAST CHANCE: Your Feedback Is Important!

As a newsletter subscriber, your opinion means a lot to us. 

Would you please take a few minutes to participate in our annual survey?

Your feedback shapes the content in this newsletter by helping us understand what topics you find most beneficial. It’s also used to create our annual Industry Report.

But don’t wait. The survey closes VERY soon!  

I want to take the survey!

🗞 ChatGPT Store Opens: OpenAI has launched a new GPT Store feature that provides ChatGPT Plus, Team, and Enterprise users access to useful and popular custom AI models developed by partners and the community. The store allows users to explore top trending GPTs across categories like writing, research, coding, and more. OpenAI will also highlight impactful GPT models as featured options each week. Builders who want to list their custom GPTs must save them for public access and verify their profile before submitting them to the marketplace. An approval process is in place to enforce OpenAI's policies. As an incentive, starting in Q1 2024, United States-based builders can earn payouts based on engagement with their listed GPTs. The GPT Store also provides ChatGPT Team customers a private hub to access secure internal GPTs published to their workspace, along with controls to manage permissions. The launch essentially facilitates the discovery and distribution of custom AI tools for various use cases among OpenAI product users and builders. Source: OpenAI

🗞 Instagram Friend's Stories: Instagram is testing a new collaborative Stories feature that allows users to create Stories for their friends. The option enables you to make a Story and share it directly to a friend's inbox. Your friend can then review the Story and choose to add it to their own public Story if they want, with your username credited as the original creator. This provides a streamlined way to create collaborative Stories between friends that could increase engagement. While brands don't have access to the feature yet, it hints at future possibilities for sourcing user-generated content by prompting fans to submit Stories for potential featuring. The option is currently being tested with a small number of users, and there is no set timeline for a wider launch. However, it aligns with Instagram's increased focus on social and interactive features. As the app shifts more into entertainment, new options that encourage user connections, like Friend's Stories, could help Instagram maintain its social core, according to chief Adam Mosseri. So, the feature warrants interest and may indicate the direction of future launches if testing goes well. Source: Social Media Today

🗞 X/Twitter eCommerce: X has formed a new partnership with Shopify to further its "everything app" strategy. Through this deal that both companies are developing, X aims to provide more options for Shopify merchants to promote their products on the X platform. While X already had an existing agreement with Shopify allowing sellers to showcase products directly in tweets, this latest collaboration will facilitate additional ways for Shopify sellers to advertise on X that go beyond what was previously in place. Source: XBusiness via X

Did You Know?

On this day in 1966, the original Batman premiered on television.