👀 Weekend Update: The Latest on Reddit Marketing

GM nerds,

Welcome back to the newsletter that always makes the jimmys go:

That’s how you know it’s good.

And here’s what’s good this week:

→ The Latest on Reddit Marketing 👀
→ More Google AI in SEO Hypocrisy 😒
→ Blog Templates That Make Money 💰
→ Why 80% of TikToks Aren’t Working For Brands🙈
→ more, obviously 💬

But first…

​This Week's Video 🗣️🎙️​

In this week's video, I share my mixed reactions to the Google Search Liason Interview on the SE roundtable. While I agreed with some of Google's statements, I also questioned their effort on some of the smaller independent sites. Some key takeaways: core updates are bigger updates, Google is trying to improve search results, and site reputation abuse is done manually. I also talk about AI content and skilled content abuse. So tune in for more details.

​YouTube​​

What’s Going Down @ Google 📊

→ The apparently insanely tone-deaf Google Small Business account on X posted “Use Gemini to help optimize SEO and boost your online presence to grow your small business.” And, honestly, I can’t remember the last time I saw so many SEOs roast Google this bad… but 2024 has been full of flops, so maybe I’m just getting used to it.

Still, penalizing marketers for optimizing for search, especially not with AI, and then offering a tool to optimize for search with AI? That’s kind of next-level hypocrisy, even for Google.

→ Speaking of Google Ls, it just had to pull an AI Gemini video for reasons of false advertising.

→ On a brighter note for the tech giant, the EU is famously an enemy of big tech, but, for now, a break-up order is “unlikely.”​

→ Google Ads is expanding its “First Position” feature to be available for all YouTube content via Display & Video 360. ICYMI, First Position launched in February, and it boosts your ad to be the first viewers see. Finally, First Position is available for marketers to leverage on the entirety of the YouTube content base.

AI Insight 🤖

→ If you’re still wondering what the big deal with OpenAI’s “Strawberry” is, here’s OpenAI’s announcement, and here’s a solid explainer by Bloomberg. TLDR; it excels at human-like reasoning tasks that other models still struggle with.

→ Plus, this thread full of Strawberry demos shows some of its intriguing capacities and possibilities. Videos include videos of Strawberry: Coding Video Game from a prompt, Quantum Physics, solving complex logic puzzles, answering questions that have famously stumped AI in the past, and more.

→ ChatGPT has surpassed 11M monthly subscribers, meaning they’re earning $225 million in monthly revenue, or $2.7 billion annually.

→ Gemini’s “Gems” are now available in the app, but can’t be created in the app yet. ICYMI, Gems are customizable AI assistants that can act as experts on topics or be refined to aid you with very specific tasks and goals.

→ Did literally anybody have Sam Altman + Oprah Winfrey content on their 2024 Bingo Card?

Social Media Round-up 📲

→ Speaking of YouTube, the platform has just introduced pause-screen ads. Basically, “the UI puts the video in a smaller block with the ad off to the right side of the screen (w/a "Dismiss" button).”

→ According to research by DAIVID, 84% of TikTok videos created by brands are not working, failing to generate even “average levels” of “positive emotions, attention, and brand recall.” Beyond this:

- 24% were “potentially damaging to brands after evoking intense negative emotions”
- 60% were “simply forgettable”
- a mere 16% scored higher than the average re: "attention, emotions and memory"

→ If you're a Meta advertiser, you may find that data access in Business Tools has been restricted and that customer audiences and ad sets may have been impacted by this change. The article offers some practical adjustments to make in light of this, including doing a quick UTM audit, setting up alerts for ad pauses, and streamlining your tracking.

→ This podcast ep features an AMA with Reddit’s new VP of Marketing, who says “it’s a misconception that Redditors categorically dislike advertising” and cites that “ 60% of Redditors want brands to participate in communities, so long as their interactions are relevant and respectful.”

This SEJ article breaks down the interview in detail, including the platform's unique strength in delivering interest-based targeting (and "auto-targeting"), and heavy investments in AI-driven advertising solutions.,

→ Here are the self-proclaimed “top SEO secrets” re: Reddit Marketing.

Tip of the Week: Blog Templates That Win Big

This how-to thread lays out 7 blog templates that make money, with examples. Best Ofs, Case Studies, Tips and Best Practices, Steps, Definitions, Ultimate Guides, and Competitor Comparisons.
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If you haven’t mastered any of these, may as well take a look.

Jacky Chou​
Founder of Indexsy
hello@indexsy.com
Let's Connect on Twitter👇

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