The weekend is almost here, Reader! Before you unplug, here’s one last round of insights and updates. Whether you read them now or save them for later, you won’t want to miss these.

In today’s edition:

• The 10-Minute LinkedIn management plan

• Which basket should you put your content eggs in?

• The Problem, Value, Stakes, Call to Action marketing model

• So many Deep Research models… Which is best?

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

LinkedIn in 10

Feeling overwhelmed by LinkedIn but know you need to be there? Good news–Louise Brogan says you only need 10 minutes daily to maintain an effective presence (not counting content creation time).

She has tips to prioritize those precious minutes to hit three key activities. Plus she tells you one thing to avoid!

It's all about priorities, right? Read more here.

Podcasting vs. YouTube: Where Should Your Content Go?

This eye-opening video tackles the eternal entrepreneur question: podcast or YouTube channel? Jerry Potter speaks from experience, running a YouTube channel and podcasts that reach 700,000+ people yearly.

Both platforms function as what the host calls "high leverage assets," — but which one delivers better results for your specific business goals?

You'll discover surprising insights about built-in discovery advantages, networking opportunities, and which platform actually requires less work (the answer might shock you!).

The video busts a common myth about workload between the platforms and reveals an unexpected strategy involving time-sensitive promotion that most entrepreneurs overlook. Watch more here.

Last Chance: Social Media Marketing World 

In just 9 days marketers from around the world will descend on San Diego to learn the latest marketing strategies, connect with their peers, and walk away inspired with fresh ideas.

Imagine all the ways you'll be equipped to improve your marketing results when you attend.

"This conference gave me a new vision for my work and opened my eyes to where I could take my career. It was very successful and I can’t wait to reflect and put what I learned into action," said Stacey Brown.

Today only: Save $200 on Your All-Access Ticket.

How to Use Story to Transform Your Marketing: A Conversation with Dr. JJ Peterson

According to research, the average person receives between 3,000 and 5,000 commercial messages daily. That doesn’t including all the other personal information competing for our attention.

You need to tell the right story, in the right way if you want to move customers to action.

The beauty of the Problem, Value, Stakes, Call to Action Story model is that it can fit into 30 seconds or expand to fill 90 minutes. Regardless of the format, you maintain the same structure and adjust the time or space you devote to each element based on the medium.

Problem: Clarify What Your Customer Wants

Don't overcomplicate this stage. If you own a lawn care service, your ideal customer wants a nice-looking yard. If you own a software security company, your ideal customer wants to protect their digital assets.

Now, you can ideate on the value you will deliver when you tell your story. This could be 3 tips, a lesson you learned, a checklist, etc.

Focus On Your Customer's Need, Not Yours

One of the most common mistakes companies make is focusing on what they want (leads, sales, etc.) instead of what the customer wants. 

The world's largest mattress company, which traditionally sells to consumers through franchised mattress stores. Initially, used to focus on telling store sales teams how great their mattresses were and why stores needed to carry them.

To differentiate from competitors and reframe their approach, they asked: "What does the mattress store actually want?" The answer was simple: to sell more mattresses—regardless of the brand. So, instead of creating a one-sheet that talked about how great the company's mattresses are, they created a one-sheet that helped salespeople sell all mattresses better, not just their own brand.

Shifting from talking about themselves to helping store owners succeed led to a significant jump in new sales and partnerships for the mattress company.

Value: Construct the Story

Remember, you're not actually trying to sell here. You're trying to name and agitate a problem for which you have a solution. Then, you give small pieces of the solution away that ultimately lead to a conversion, such as a sale, an email opt-in, etc.

Name the Customer's External and Internal Problems to Hook Your Customer

Stories don't become interesting or memorable for us until a problem appears.

In marketing, there are two types of problems to address and you’ll need both of types in your opening:

• External problems are your customers' tangible challenges—for example, an overgrown lawn or a website that isn't generating leads.

• Internal problems are the emotional consequences of those external problems—how they make your customers feel.

For example: 

• "My yard is overgrown" is an external problem. "I'm embarrassed by the state of my yard" is an internal problem.

• "87% of businesses are prioritizing the internal implementation of AI over the next 5 years" is an external problem. "If I don't learn to use AI, I'll lose my job to someone who can use AI" is an internal problem.

This distinction between external and internal problems is crucial for marketers to understand.

Why? "People often go shopping to pay to solve an external problem, but they make buying decisions to solve an internal problem," Peterson explains.

Pro Tip: How long should you focus on the problems? Peterson offers these content-specific guidelines:

• For a 30-60-second reel, the first 10 seconds

• For an hour-long keynote, the first 5-10 minutes

• For a half-hour webinar, the first 5 minutes

• For a blog post, the opening paragraphs

Position Your Brand as the Guide With Value to Offer

Begin by demonstrating empathy and authority relevant to your customer's situation.

If the problem is that someone needs to lose 30 pounds, empathy is, "I've been in your shoes, and I've struggled." Authority is, "I learned how to lose 30 pounds safely, and I've not regained it. Here are three things I learned along the way."

This section should make up the largest portion of your content, and whether you're sharing specific tips or broader lessons you've learned, the key is to show how your knowledge can help your audience overcome their challenge or reach their goal.

Stakes and CTA: Close the Story

Close by addressing what's at stake for your audience by outlining both the potential failure and success:

• What happens if they don't take your advice or use your solution? How will their problems persist or worsen?

• What positive outcomes will they experience if they follow your guidance?

Finally, tell your audience exactly what to do next:

• Sign up for this

• Buy this

• Schedule a call

Being direct with your call to action isn't pushy—it's a service to your audience. They need to know what to do to have a successful ending to their story. "If you shrink in that moment as their guide, you actually are doing them no service," says Peterson.

Today's advice is provided with insights from Dr. JJ Peterson, a featured guest on the Social Media Marketing Podcast and speaker at Social Media Marketing World.

Is Imposter Syndrome Holding You Back?

Is there something you don't feel confident enough to do? Maybe it's creating videos or positioning yourself as a thought leader. You can do it! 💪

The first step on your new journey is surrounding yourself with people who believe their work is making a difference. You'll find these people at Social Media Marketing World 2025–taking place March 30 - April 1. If you attend, there’s a very good chance you’ll walk away inspired to do the thing you've always wanted to do. 

Secure your All-Access Ticket and save $200 today.

Deep Research AI: Which Tool Actually Works Best?

Rick Mulready wanted to know the answer to this question, too. So he spent 50+ hours testing the Deep Research modes across different AI platforms to cut through the marketing hype and show what really works.

Rick compared ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and GenSpark.

The video showcases real business applications beyond the usual use cases – from researching business tools to preparing client proposals (saving hours of work), conducting audience deep-dives, staying current with regulations, and identifying emerging market trends.

Plus, Rick shared his four-part prompting framework, which consistently delivers superior results with these tools. One research task that would have taken 9 hours of reading was completed in minutes, potentially saving $450 in time costs.

Want to see Rick's exact prompting template and discover which platform is best for your specific needs? Watch more here.

Anthropic Adds Search Capability to Claude: Web search gives Claude access to the latest information, improving accuracy for tasks requiring recent data. Claude provides direct citations when using web information, allowing users to fact-check sources easily. The assistant processes and delivers relevant sources conversationally rather than showing raw search results. Web search is currently available in feature preview for paid Claude users in the United States, with support for free users and additional countries coming soon. To use web search, users must toggle it in their profile settings and start conversing with Claude 3.7 Sonnet. When applicable, Claude will automatically search the web to inform its responses. Source: Anthropic

LinkedIn's Skills on the Rise 2025 Report: The platform released its inaugural "Skills on the Rise" list, identifying 15 of the fastest-growing professional skills in today's rapidly changing workplace. According to LinkedIn data, 70% of skills used in most jobs will change by 2030, making skill development crucial for organizations and professionals. Four of the top five skills tie heavily into AI literacy and adaptability: Understanding and utilizing AI tools for business purposes, continuous learning and resilience amid rapid change, improving operational efficiency and cost-effectiveness, and creative problem-solving in the AI-transformed landscape. Source: LinkedIn

Meta AI Rolling Out to 41 European Countries and 21 Overseas Territories: The initial release includes an intelligent chat function in six European languages, with plans for expansion. Meta AI will be free across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, accessible via a blue circle icon. Users can summon Meta AI in group chats by typing "@MetaAI" followed by their query, starting with WhatsApp and expanding to other platforms soon. The assistant can help discover relevant content across Meta platforms, including reels and posts from friends. Meta AI includes web search capabilities, providing information with context in a conversational format. The company plans to eventually bring additional features to Europe, such as personalization and AI Studio, already available in other markets. Source: Meta

New Threads Features: The platform now allows users to add up to ten topics to their bio, showcasing favorite communities and interests on their profile. Tapping a topic on someone's profile leads directly to related conversations, making connecting with people sharing similar interests easier. When drafting new content, users will now see prompts to add suggested trending topics or ones related to previous posts. Threads has redesigned the timely topics tag to make it more prominent in the For You feed for faster topic access. Starting today, users can allow replies and quote-posts only from their followers, building on the Quote Controls feature introduced in November 2024. Users can now personalize the order of their feeds, such as setting a custom feed as the default when opening the app. The media player has been enhanced with new pause, play, and skip buttons that simplify video watching. A pinned progress bar has been added to the video player, making it easier to navigate backward and forward in videos. Source: Meta

TikTok Academy Updates: The platform unveiled a new learning experience with an upgraded interface and enhanced curriculum. New features include curated learning paths that organize essential TikTok marketing knowledge into comprehensive sequences for TikTok basics, building brand awareness, driving website conversions, promoting mobile apps, and generating leads. Source: TikTok

TikTok Media Mix Modeling Updates: API integration is now in open beta, eliminating manual data pulls and allowing automatic TikTok data access for MMM systems. Advertisers can join a list for early access. Additionally, earned data from Branded Mission and Branded Effect packages is now available for integration alongside traditional paid metrics (spend, impressions, clicks, conversions). These updates build on TikTok's existing partnerships to improve data quality. Source: TikTok

OpenAI Launching New Speech-to-Text and Text-to-Speech Audio Models: The new speech-to-text tools can turn spoken words into written text more accurately, even with different accents or background noise. For the first time, developers can tell the text-to-speech tool how to sound when it talks - like friendly, excited, or calm. All developers can use these new voice tools now. Source: OpenAI

xAI Adds Image Generation Capabilities to API: Only one model currently exists in the API, "grok-2-image-1212." The model can generate up to 10 images per request when given a caption, with a limit of five requests per second. Images are delivered in JPG format and cost $0.07 per image. According to xAI's documentation, the API doesn't yet support adjusting image quality, size, or style. Prompts in requests are subject to revision by a "chat model." Source: TechCrunch

YouTube Video Quality Issue: The platform acknowledged an ongoing issue affecting video playback quality across our platform. The issue includes videos and Shorts defaulting to low resolution (144p or 360p) despite strong internet connections, buffering when switching to higher quality settings, and quality issues affecting iOS devices, desktop browsers, and Smart TVs. Engineers are prioritizing a fix for this widespread issue. Source: Google

Did You Know?

Mickey Mouse's first spoken words were, "Hot Dogs! Hot Dogs!" in the 1929 animated short film The Karnival Kid. This was the ninth Mickey Mouse cartoon and the first in which he spoke.