We’re halfway through the week, Reader, how’s your marketing strategy holding up? Today’s tips and insights will help you fine-tune your approach.

In today’s edition:

• The organic LinkedIn strategy that starts with reducing your content

• Why your short TikToks might be sabotaging your reach

• How to get your marketing team to befriend AI

• 🗞️ Industry news from Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and more

Dominate LinkedIn in 2025: Less Content and Zero Ads 

Michelle J. Raymond reminds us that 80% of B2B buyers' journeys happen before they contact sales, which means consistent, valuable content builds credibility with potential customers who are quietly observing your brand before reaching out.

The blueprint starts with optimizing your most valuable resource—time—and introduces an intriguing concept called "Page Advocacy" that flips traditional company page strategy on its head. Starting with, wait for it… less content! 

Her article dives into practical techniques for building momentum through your team and leveraging thought leadership to create lasting impact—all without spending a dime on advertising. Read more here.

What Gets More Reach on TikTok: 30-Second or 60-Second Video?

Want to boost your TikTok views? You might be making videos that are too short!

New research from Buffer analyzed over 1.1 million TikToks and found something surprising: longer videos actually perform better. While 86% of TikToks are under a minute long, videos longer than 60 seconds get 43% more reach and nearly 64% more watch time than shorter clips.

The distribution breakdown shows most creators are sticking to shorter formats:

• 34% of videos: 10-30 seconds

• 27% of videos: 30-60 seconds

• Only 12% of videos: 60+ seconds

Yet that last group sees significantly higher engagement metrics. Videos over a minute long get 70% more reach than 10-30-second videos and a whopping 176% more watch time! Read more here.

Watch My Opening Keynote on Mar 31 

Delivering the opening keynote for Social Media Marketing World is no small undertaking. Each year, I conduct original research, examine industry trends, and try to provide marketers with a clear path forward. The pressure is even more intense this year because we've never seen this kind of disruption in marketing.

Even though my keynote is only delivered once, I invest dozens of hours refining it because it's my mission to make this one presentation worth the price of admission to the conference.

“I was sitting in my office watching Mike's opening keynote. My daughter had visited to pick up one thing. I'll just be in and out, she said. Well, after standing behind me for 5 minutes, she went and grabbed the ottoman from the other room to watch with me,” said Virtual attendee Gail Eddy.

If you secure your All-Access Ticket by this Friday, you’ll save $200. 

Get your ticket to watch in-person.

AI-Driven Teams: How to Transform Your Workforce

Are you struggling to implement AI effectively in your business? Wondering how to overcome resistance from your team and leverage AI for optimal productivity?

Resistance to AI implementation is common, especially from team members who fear their jobs are at risk and who believe AI can’t do their job as well as they can.

In this article, you'll discover how to navigate the transition with empathy and figure out how to help their teams to do more with AI, not how to replace them with AI.

How to Proactively Overcome Resistance to AI in Your Organization

Rather than starting with team members who are on board with using AI, Jeff J. Hunter, AI consultant and founder of VA Staffer suggests a starting with the resistors in your company. 

Why? 

The resistors can act as an anchor, holding back your initiatives. Get their buy-in first and you’re ahead of the game.

Here are some key discussion points to help:

Address their concerns directly: Ask team members, "What is your biggest concern about leveraging AI in your job?" Open an honest dialogue about their fears and hesitations.

Position AI as a Helper, not a Replacement: Emphasize that AI will assist them in doing their jobs better rather than taking over completely.

Focus on Eliminating Tedious Tasks: Everyone has parts of their job they don't like to do that AI can do. Maybe it’s lead lead generation, writing proposals, or repetitive administrative tasks. Identify those pain points for each team and help them build an AI assistant to perform those tasks. 

Use Non-Threatening Language When Talking About AI Assistants: The way you refer to and position your AI tools matters significantly in how they're received. Avoid terms like "job replacement bot" and instead use positive framing like "sales enablement assistant" or "marketing support tool."

Help Every Team Create Their First AI Persona (AI Assistant)

Resistance to AI implementation is common, especially from team members who fear their jobs are at risk and who believe AI can’t do their job as well as they can. 

Business owners need to navigate this transition with empathy and figure out how to help their teams to do more with AI-powered virtual assistants, not how to replace them with AI technology.

When introducing AI integration to teams, Hunter uses a disarming approach and doesn’t initially mention AI. Instead, he starts with, "My job here today is to hire an assistant for you. Would anybody like an assistant to take on the tasks, routine tasks or otherwise that you don’t like doing?" When team members respond positively, he continues, "Now let’s create the perfect job description of who you want to hire."

After teams get excited about their ideal assistant and have their job description ready, Hunter says, "Wouldn't it be cool if we could magically hire the perfect assistant for you right now?” 

Only then does he have everyone open ChatGPT and tell them they’re going to build their first AI persona.

Taking this approach frames AI as a helpful addition rather than a threatening replacement.

Once the detailed persona is built, Hunter suggests asking an open-ended question to begin working with it. For example, if you create a newsletter writing assistant:

Based on the information I provided you, how can you help me write newsletters?

This allows the AI to suggest helpful approaches based on its specialized role rather than you directing it too narrowly.

Reset Performance Expectations for AI-Assisted Workflows

When Hunter introduced these concepts to his copywriting team, he was transparent with his team about AI's impact. Writing a sales page used to take his staff three to four hours for which they were paid $500. Today, the AI-assisted workflow helps his staff deliver a sales page in 20 minutes. 

As AI helps your team perform many tasks dramatically faster and with more ease, you’ll likely need to reset workflow and compensation expectations with your teams. 

While addressing the reality that AI is changing what's possible with your workforce, you must also be careful to avoid being seen as "anti-human." You have to give your staff an opportunity to figure out how to augment their job to create more value.

Here are three approaches to consider:

• Increase the Expected Output: If team members can now complete in minutes what used to take hours, it's reasonable to expect more productivity.

• Shift to Results-Based Compensation: For roles heavily augmented by AI, consider compensation models tied to outcomes rather than time spent.

• Allow More Time-Related Freedom: Maintain the same output while reducing hours.

Today's advice provided with insights from Jeff J. Hunter, a featured guest on the AI Explored podcast and speaker at Social Media Marketing World.

Level Up Your Skills and Business

Your Virtual Ticket to Social Media Marketing World includes recordings of all the workshops, covering important marketing topics including:

• Turning the Ordinary Video into Extraordinary - Steve Wright

• Using Behavioral Science to Improve Your Results - Nancy Harhut

• Content Marketing Strategy for Personal Brands - Rory Vaden 

• Fundamentals of Message Design - Tamsen Webster 

• Google Analytics 4 Simplified - Zack Duncan 

• Mastering the Art of Sales Conversations - Nikki Rausch 

Yes, I want recordings of all the incredible content!

Instagram Meta AI-Generated Comments: Some users on the platform can write comments with the help of Meta AI. Source: @jonahmanzano via Threads

TikTok Introduces Security Checkup: The all-in-one security tool lets users manage backup login methods, enable 2-step verification, see which devices are logged into their account, and update sign-in preferences from a single dashboard. Source: TikTok

YouTube Tools and Features Updates: The platform is experimenting with visual guides in the Shorts editor to show creators where elements appear relative to what viewers will see. The video copyright details page in YouTube Studio has been redesigned to make finding key information about copyright claims easier. Some creators will be invited to help build AI protection tools by submitting video selfies, which will only be used for developing tools to detect and manage AI-generated content showing creators' faces. YouTube is updating the channel membership tab content feed on mobile to improve new member activation and content discovery. Source: YouTube

Skipping YouTube End Screens: YouTube is currently testing a new feature both on mobile and desktop that allows viewers to hide end screens. If you're part of the experiment group, you'll see a "Hide" button in the top-right corner of the video when end screens start to appear. If you tap it, the end screens will be hidden on a per-video basis, giving you more control over your viewing experience. If you want to make the end screens re-appear, just tap the "Show" button that is also located in the top right of the video. Source: YouTube

Did You Know?

Brooms used to be round. Before the 19th century, brooms were typically made by tying twigs, straw, or other materials into a round bundle attached to a handle. The modern broom began to take shape around 1797, with the invention of flat brooms by the Shakers.