Presented by

It’s National Eat at a Food Truck Day, Reader... Lunchtime solved!

In today’s edition:

• 🧪 Today's Tip of the Day is for testing AI

• ⚙️ Automating repetitive content creation tasks

• Instagram develops Shared Access feature

• X launches Ads Academy

• Additional industry news from Facebook, YouTube, and more

The volume of new AI tools and solutions can make knowing which one will work best for you challenging.

One approach to selecting AI tools and platforms is to start with a pilot or proof-of-concept project. 

Implement a 30-90 Pilot Test for AI Solutions

This first step is to get started, literally. Once you’ve identified your proposed use-case solution, commit to activating it in 30 days or less.

Once activated, test the tool or workflow with a small section of your team for 90 days.

This allows you to test the solution on a small scale, evaluate its performance and usability, and gather feedback from stakeholders.

At the end of 90 days, you can choose whether to keep, adjust, or cancel the implementation.

Today's tip is inspired by Paul Roetzer, a featured guest on the Social Media Marketing Podcast.

Ready to Connect With Other Marketers?

Something special happens when you attend Social Media Marketing World. There's a sense of camaraderie that you can only experience live at the conference. 

When you attend, you'll make meaningful connections with other marketers who speak your language, understand your challenges, and are dedicated to helping each other.

"The people that you meet here are an impeccable resource. Everyone is here to help you out. No one's selling you anything. It's more about how do we help each other out and engage," said George Suero.

I’m ready to make new connections.

How to Streamline and Automate Your Content Creation Process

Content creation is an essential part of any marketing strategy, but it can also be one of the most time-consuming and challenging aspects of the job. 

The good news? You can use automation to streamline your content creation workflow and create more content in less time.

Ready?

Use a Content Management System

One key to simplifying your content creation process is using a content management system (CMS) instead of a project management tool. While project management tools like Asana and Trello are great for managing people and tasks, they aren't specifically designed for managing content.

A CMS, on the other hand, is built specifically for managing content at a granular level. It allows you to organize, track, and collaborate on content throughout the creation process, from ideation to publication.

One popular CMS is Airtable, which offers a highly customizable and user-friendly interface for managing content. For example, you can create custom content packages that include all of the assets and information related to a specific piece of content.

Let's say you have a podcast that includes a variety of different assets, such as:

• The main video file

• The audio files

• The transcript

• Social media clips

• Show notes

• A blog post based on the episode

You can create a custom package for your podcast that includes all of these assets in one centralized location. You can then track the progress of each asset as it moves through the creation process. For instance, you might have columns for:

• Episode number

• Episode title

• Recording date

• Status (e.g., "Recorded," "Edited," "Published")

• Main video file link

• Audio file links

• Transcript link

• Social media clip links

• Show notes link

• Blog post link

By linking all of these assets together, you can keep everything organized and easily accessible to your entire team in real time.

But the real power of using a CMS comes from its automation capabilities.

Automate Your Workflow With Triggers

To fully automate your content creation workflow, you'll need to use tools like Zapier and Make. These tools act as the glue that connects different software and services, allowing you to set up triggers and actions that automatically perform tasks for you.

For example, you could set up an automation that automatically creates a new row in your "Podcasts" table whenever a new episode is recorded. This automation could be triggered by a specific action, such as uploading a new video file to Google Drive.

You could also set up an automation that sends a notification to your podcast editor whenever a new episode is ready for editing. This notification could include a link to the main video file and any relevant notes or instructions.

Other examples of automation might include:

• Automatically generating social media posts whenever a new episode is published

• Sending a notification to your team whenever a task is completed or a deadline is approaching

• Updating the status of an asset when a specific action is taken (e.g., changing the status to "Edited" when the video file is updated)

Leverage AI Tools

Another way to simplify your content creation process is by leveraging AI tools to help with transcription, writing, and image creation tasks.

Instead of spending hours manually transcribing the video, you could use a tool like Whisper to transcribe the audio automatically.

Once you have the transcript, you can use a tool like ChatGPT to generate a blog post based on the video's content.

You can even use AI tools to create images for your social media posts. Tools like Dall-E and Midjourney can generate custom images based on text descriptions, allowing you to create eye-catching visuals for your posts quickly.

Today's advice is provided with insights from Stephen G. Pope, a featured guest on the Social Media Marketing Podcast.

🗞 OpenAI’s ChatGPT for Mac: OpenAI has released its ChatGPT app for Mac to all users with Apple silicon devices. The app allows users to interact via text, attach files and images, and use Voice Mode for spoken conversations. It's no-cost, and full features are available to ChatGPT Plus subscribers. Source: 9to5Mac

🗞 Facebook’s Broadcast Channels: Facebook has launched broadcast channels globally for Pages with over 10K followers, allowing creators to send content directly to followers in a chat format. New features include cross-platform sharing between Instagram and Facebook channels, early access to content for channel members, and the ability to share channel content in Facebook stories. Source: Facebook

🗞 Instagram Tests AI Chatbot Characters: Meta is testing "AI Studio" on Instagram, allowing select United States creators to make AI chatbot versions of themselves. These AI interactions, primarily in messaging, will be clearly labeled. Source: The Verge

🗞 Instagram’s Shared Access: Instagram is developing a new feature called Shared Access, allowing users to grant limited access to their accounts to trusted individuals. This feature will enable users to invite up to three people to manage certain aspects of their Instagram account without sharing their password. These invited users will be able to post content and manage messages, among other tasks. However, the people granted access will not be able to disable the primary user's account. Source: Alessandro Paluzzi via X

🗞 Reddit Blocks AI Scrapers: Reddit is updating its Robots Exclusion Protocol to block unauthorized scraping. The platform will mainly target AI companies that ignore such restrictions. It will block and rate-limit crawlers without prior agreements while still permitting access to legitimate actors like researchers. Source: Engadget

🗞 TikTok’s Data Security: TikTok US Data Security (USDS) has partnered with HaystackID and OnDefend as Independent Security Inspectors, with support from Mandiant Consulting. This collaboration aims to enhance data security and cybersecurity for TikTok's US platform through continuous technical testing and validation. This initiative will focus on ensuring the integrity of the app, source code, and user data. Source: TikTok

🗞 X Ads Academy: X has launched X Ads Academy, an e-learning platform for businesses and marketers to create effective ad campaigns on X. The platform offers courses for beginners and professionals, with 31 courses and 4 certifications available at launch in English. Users can learn campaign optimization, explore creative best practices, and earn certifications to showcase their expertise. Source: X Business 

🗞 YouTube Tests Mentions in Comments: YouTube is testing a new feature that allows users to mention channels in mobile comments. When users type "@" followed by a channel name, they can select from a list of recommendations. The mentioned handle becomes a clickable link in the comment. Currently, only a small group of creators can post comments with mentions, but all users can interact with these comments. Source: YouTube

Did You Know?

Many animals mate for life: swans, penguins, seahorses… and termites.