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It’s National Bagel Day, Reader! Do you like yours sweet, savory, or plain?

In today’s edition:

• 🗣️ Today's Tip of the Day is for content marketing

• 💡 Building AI agents the easy way

• Instagram’s 2025 focus

• TikTok video editing

• 🗞️ Additional industry news from ChatGPT, Substack, and more

Does your marketing use the problem/solution tactic? Are people responding and buying from you, or are they unmoved?

Simply identifying problems isn't enough anymore. You have to make the problem memorable by tying it to emotions that persuade people to take action.

3 Ways to Persuasively Frame Your Customer's Problem 

Give Your Problem a Memorable Name: When you give a problem a specific, relatable name, you provide your audience with relief. They now have language to discuss and share their challenges with others. This naming convention creates a shorthand that makes the problem more accessible and discussable within their communities.

Visualize the Problem Through Models: Visualizations serve multiple purposes in your communication strategy. By breaking down the problem into visible components and mechanisms, you help your audience better understand what they're facing. This comprehension creates a sense of empowerment – when people see how a problem works, they feel more equipped to address it.

Create Self-Assessment Opportunities: Encourage your audience to assess their experience with the problem along a continuum. This self-assessment process triggers various emotional responses that make the problem more personally relevant and memorable. When audience members can place themselves somewhere along a spectrum of problem experiences, it creates various emotional reactions. Some might feel validated in their struggles, while others might experience an eagerness for change. These emotional responses strengthen their connection to both the problem and potential solutions.

Today's tip was inspired by Tamsen Webster, a featured speaker at Social Media Marketing World.

How to Be More Valuable in 2025…

Are you looking for a way to shine to your boss or clients? Imagine becoming the go-to expert that your team can’t live without. 

Or maybe that’s already you, but you’re looking for a way to get a raise, increase your rates, or bring in even more revenue for your company. That’s what can happen when you get specialized knowledge at Social Media Marketing World.

“Social Media Marketing World has taught me more about social media and marketing than my entire college degree. Honestly, this conference is why I have the position I have now," said Ashley Logsdon.

I’m ready to invest in myself.

Creating AI Agents: The Future of Work is Here

Wondering how to use AI agents to enhance your work? Not sure where to start?

In this article, you'll discover examples of how AI agents are already transforming customer service, sales, and operations and learn how to stay ahead of this revolutionary change.

How AI is Changing the Way We Work and Do Business: The Agentic Revolution

AI is democratizing technology access in unprecedented ways. "This revolution is a thousand X what the internet is," Kanungo emphasizes. To illustrate this point, he shares his experience running a mobile app development company while at Deloitte.

"When I went through that process, I'd had to do the UI, the UX, the marketing, the QA testing, all the development, either myself or outsourcing people using Upwork and all these different sites," Kanungo recalls. These projects would typically take months or even a year to complete.

AI has dramatically compressed that timeline. Tasks that once required months can now be accomplished in days or hours at a fraction of the cost.

Kanungo believes that in this new landscape, creativity becomes the critical variable. "In an AI world, when anybody can create content, where anybody can create an image or a video or written content, creativity becomes the variable," he explains. 

This shift has profound implications for marketers and entrepreneurs.

What Are AI Agents

AI agents are simply systems that mimic humans. They enable customers or employees to solve problems and take action through natural conversational experiences—all done autonomously.

An agent can be an external customer-facing or internal peer-facing entity that automates existing processes. 

This versatility makes AI agents applicable across various business functions, and their capabilities are expanding rapidly. Imagine a time when no human has to touch a CRM. Today, a human has to enter or retrieve information from these systems. AI agents could soon eliminate this friction.

For marketers, these changes present both opportunities and challenges. The democratization of content creation means that standing out will require more than technical proficiency with AI. It will also demand genuine human creativity and innovation.

Marketers should focus on building their "AI muscle" by experimenting with these tools in controlled environments. This hands-on experience helps develop practical skills and provides insight into potential risks and limitations.

AI agents can handle routine tasks, analyze data, and generate initial content drafts, freeing marketers to focus on strategy, creativity, and building authentic connections with their audience.

Get Started with AI Agents

If you're ready to implement AI agents in your business, document your processes and identify repetitive, time-consuming, and rule-based tasks. These make ideal candidates for automation.

Then, set up a sandbox testing environment to test your automation in a controlled setting without impacting your core operations. While this may sound overly technical, it can be as simple as using separate email accounts or CRM instances for testing.

To build an automation, try Lindy.ai, a platform that makes AI agent creation accessible even to non-technical users. The platform offers pre-built integrations with common business tools and "recipes" for standard workflows.

Next, identify a challenge in your work to automate. 

Once you've proven the concept, gradually expand to other processes, always maintaining clear governance policies and security measures.

2 Use Case Examples: AI Agents for Email Management

One of Kanungo's workflows involves email management. When an email arrives in his inbox, an AI agent enriches it with additional information about the sender, stores relevant details in his CRM, and creates a response that waits for him in an email drafts folder. While he's not yet comfortable letting the AI send emails autonomously, this workflow significantly reduces his daily email burden.

Another example involves meeting management. The AI agent connects to his calendar, transcribes meetings, summarizes the conversations, and creates draft follow-up emails. These automated workflows free up significant time for higher-value activities.

Today's advice provided with insights from Shawn Kanungo, a featured guest on the AI Explored podcast.

Are You Ready to Achieve Your 2025 Marketing Goals?

We’re already a few weeks into 2025. How are your plans going? 

If you’re still searching for new ideas, an All-Access ticket to Social Media Marketing World is your best investment.  

✅ Discover new strategies that improve your results 

✅ Fortify your marketing plans for 2025 and beyond  

✅ Connect with other marketers on a similar path

✅ Become more valuable to your company or clients   

Get advanced training on marketing strategy, AI, and so much more at Social Media Marketing World–taking place March 30 - April 1. 

I’m ready to hit my goals in 2025.

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ChatGPT Tasks in Beta: The new beta feature, which allows paid users to ask the AI to schedule reminders or recurring requests, will start rolling out to ChatGPT Plus, Team, and Pro users around the globe this week. Source: TechCrunch

Paid Engagement Packages on Instagram: Meta appears to be testing user interest in paid engagement packages through a survey received by select Instagram users. The survey presents options like paying $150 for 600 followers and 2,000 messages or $1,150 for more followers and comments. The survey likely relates to potential Meta Verified subscription benefits rather than direct engagement purchasing. It suggests Meta could boost paid subscribers' content reach to achieve these engagement levels organically, similar to how paid advertising works, implying Meta has significant control over content visibility and engagement beyond content quality. Source: Social Media Today

Instagram's 2025 Priorities Announced: The head of Instagram shared the platform's two main focuses for the coming year: creativity and connection. Creative tools and new technologies will be enhanced, and original content will be rewarded. Messaging capabilities will be expanded, content consumption will be more interactive, and more connection features will be developed. Source: Adam Mosseri via Threads

Live Video on Substack: The feature is now available to all publishers on their platform who have at least 10 free subscribers in the Substack app. After each livestream, publishers receive a recording and AI-generated clips for sharing across Notes and social media platforms. Source: Substack

TikTok Video Editor Tool Updates: The upgraded tool streamlines video editing for campaign managers by offering features like digital avatars, auto-captions, one-click translations, and AI-generated soundtracks. The tool includes a Commercial Music Library, AI dubbing in 14 languages, and 388 digital avatars to help advertisers create diverse, globally accessible content that combats creative fatigue. Source: TikTok

Did You Know?

Authentic wrought iron is no longer mass-produced; modern "wrought iron" products are typically made of mild steel shaped to mimic the look of traditional wrought iron. True wrought iron is now a specialty material, often salvaged from old structures or made in limited quantities by artisan blacksmiths.