Podcast appearances and mentions of matt navarra

In this episode of The Influence Factor, Alessandro Bogliari, CEO and Co-Founder of The Influencer Marketing Factory, speaks with Justin Moore, founder of Creator Wizard. They discuss sponsorship coaching for creators, the evolution of YouTube, and strategies for pitching to sponsors. Justin also highlights the importance of focusing on sponsor objectives, avoiding media kits in cold pitches, and understanding key aspects like deliverables and usage rights.

Kim Kardashian, Robert Habeck, Matt Navarra und der Digital Bash – beim OMR Festival 2024 gab es ein buntes Content-Festival mit wichtigen Botschaften, hilfreichen Tipps und enorm vielen Marketing Insights für die ganze Digitalgesellschaft. In der neuen Weekly Update-Folge des Digital Bash Podcast erklärt OnlineMarketing.de-Redakteur Niklas Lewanczik, welche zentralen Insights das Festival und der OMR x Digital Bash Livestream bereithielten und wie du dir diese auch nachträglich zu Gemüte führen kannst. Außerdem geht es um wichtige Updates wie die Einführung des Instagram Creator Marketplace in Deutschland und neue Story Sticker sowie KI-Werbe-Tools von Meta, TikToks Klage gegen das US-Gesetz samt Verkaufszwang und neue AI Labels auf TikTok und bei OpenAI, ein brandneues WhatsApp Layout, Tipps zur KI-gestützten SEO und diverse AI Updates wie den Test der Conversational AI auf YouTube. Höre dir die Folge in wenigen Minuten an und bleibe auch in der OMR-Woche up to date in diesen schnelllebigen Zeiten:OMR 2024: Kim Kardashian, Robert Habeck und das ganz normale Marketing-SpektakelInstagram launcht Creator Marketplace in Deutschland – mit AI SupportWhatsApp verändert das Layout deutlich: Das ist der neue LookInstagram launcht 4 neue Story Sticker: Add Yours Music, Cutouts, Frames und RevealMetas neue AI Tools für Ad-Erstellung: Zentralisiert über Advantage+ CreativeTikTok: Automatisches AI Label für KI-generierte Inhalte von anderen PlattformenVerkauf oder Verbot? TikTok klagt gegen US-GesetzAI SEO: Wie dir Künstliche Intelligenz bei deiner Suchmaschinenoptimierung hilftDas Schicksal der Content Creator im Zeitalter der KI: Austausch oder Koexistenz?OpenAI: Stack Overflow-Kooperation, KI-Content-Labels und neuer Media ManagerInformiere dich auch über unseren OMR x Digital Bash Livestream und hole dir dein Update zum großen Marketing Event.Das OnlineMarketing.de Team wünscht dir ein zauberhaftes Wochenende. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Instagram har oppdatert algoritmene, slik at originalt innhold får desto mer rekkevidde. I tillegg gir det flere muligheter for små kontoer til å nå ut med sitt innhold. I tillegg til at originalt innhold blir "premiert", vil gjentatte delinger av uoriginalt innhold bli "straffet" ved at kontoen mister synlighet blant anbefalte innlegg. Inspirasjon til denne episoden kommer fra Matt Navarra

In the newest episode of The Influence Factor, Alessandro Bogliari, CEO & Co-Founder of The Influencer Marketing Factory, engages in a conversation with Liz Griffin, Global Vice President of Social Commerce at Bazaarvoice, delving into the critical significance of user-generated content (UGC) in fostering transparent shopping experiences. Bazaarvoice collaborates closely with brands, integrating customer UGC onto their websites to furnish transparency and validation for consumers. Griffin underscores the necessity for brands to seamlessly incorporate social content into their paid advertisements, thereby simplifying the consumer journey to purchase. Additionally, she underscores the profound impact of UGC, particularly through the utilization of images and videos for authentic product evaluations.

Auf 60.249 Menschen auf X kommt eine Person, die sich um die Inhaltsmoderation kümmert. Zum Vergleich: Bei Meta ist das Verhältnis 1:17.600 und bei TikTok immer noch 1:22.586. Dafür gibt es aber Menschen bei X, denen es wichtig ist, dass die Blockierfunktion langsam abgeschafft wird. Außerdem gibt's News zum BR24-Gate. Aber dazu diese Woche mehr… ➡️ So soll die neue X-UI aussehen, sagt Matt Navarra auf Threads: https://www.threads.net/@mattnavarra/post/C6YQm7QgEJ4/ ➡️ „Haken dran“ hat einen Discord-Chat, in dem sich zahlreiche Social Media-Menschen über alles austauschen, was sie lieben - und hassen. Mitmachen könnt ihr hier: ⁠http://www.hakendran.org⁠

Following the previous episode (episode 51), where we shared our favourite marketing emails, today we've curated a list of *some* of our favourite social media accounts and creators to follow for up-to-date marketing advice and updates.Here are our 'must-follow' recommendations:Matt Navarra (@mattnavarra) Matt draws on 20+ years marketing experience working for huge brands and government organisations. Matt is the go-to guy for new social media features, news, and drama;Jade Tambinini (@B2BJade)You'll love Jade's insights and sense of humour if you have a B2B (business to business) business and especially if you work in marketing. Also listen to our interview with Jade in episode 28;Todd Collins (@toddcollinsofficial)The no BS Dad who tells you the harsh reality about why your content isn't working, shares practical tips and insights. We had the pleasure of interviewing Todd for episode 10;Brand Boss (@brandbossHQ)Explains marketing aspects in simple ways that anyone can understand. Great advice for young CMOs about how to work with leadership. Short, sharp and to the point;The Muthership (@themuthership)If you want practical TikTok tutorials, this creator is for you. Everything is broken down step-by-step from filming to editing to posting;Kaila Uli (@kailauli)Shares small business marketing tips and lessons from her own extensive e-commerce experience. We love her mini website audits and practical advice;Rory Sutherland (@rorysutherlandclips)Follow for fascinating psychological insights and stories about big name brands and businesses;Honorable mentions:Brittney Saunders from @Fayt_the_label and Chace Barber from @_edison.motors for examples of great marketing in actionWhat are your must-follow marketing accounts? Let us know! Send us a DM on Instagram or TikTok with your recommendations.Connect with us on Instagram and TikTok @madmarketingmums and tell us what you think about this episode.

In the latest episode of The Influence Factor, Kat Norton, the visionary behind Miss Excel, joined Alessandro Bogliari, CEO of The Influencer Marketing Factory, for a GREAT episode!

In the latest episode of The Influence Factor, Coco Mocoe a marketing trend predictor and full-time creator, joins Alessandro Bogliari, CEO & Co-Founder of The Influencer Marketing Factory. They discuss various topics related to the Creator Economy and social media, including Coco's background, challenges as a full-time creator, insights into live streaming and content quality, and predictions for the future of platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. Coco emphasizes the importance of consistency for creators and shares insights on content consumption trends. She concludes with predictions for the rise of long-form content and competition among social media platforms. Coco Mocoe's Podcast

How can you stay up-to-date with the ever-changing world that is marketing and social media? In this bite-sized episode we're sharing our favourite "must read" newsletters that will actually make you look forward to opening your inbox!Packed with tips, tools, psychological insights, plus a good ol' dose of social media gossip, these emails are your go-to reads for all things marketing and social media.Connect with us on Instagram and TikTok @madmarketingmums and tell us what you think about this episode.

In the latest episode of The Influence Factor, Bryan Reisberg, creator and co-founder of Little Chonk, joins Alessandro Bogliari, CEO & Co-Founder of The Influencer Marketing Factory. Bryan shares his journey as a creator and entrepreneur in the pet industry, offering insights from his film and advertising background. The conversation navigates through the creation of Little Chonk, discussing challenges in business development and emphasizing the significance of quality products, successful community engagement, and maintaining authenticity in the influencer space.

In this episode of The Influence Factor, Alessandro Bogliari, CEO & Co-Founder of The Influencer Marketing Factory, dives into the world of digital commerce and the creator economy with Justin Smith, CEO of SamCart. They explore SamCart's mission to dominate as the top e-commerce platform for digital sellers, its transformative impact on the digital commerce landscape, and the role of AI in boosting conversions. Justin shares insights on creators selling their products, the influence of affiliate and influencer marketing, and unveils key takeaways from the 2023 Creator of Profits Report. Tune in for a glimpse into the future with discussions on AI-generated influencers and the evolving industry landscape.

Seismic shifts and emerging trends are reshaping the Social Commerce landscape in 2024. Join Paul & Verity LIVE, from the Social Commerce Summit: London 2024, as they dive deep into this ever-evolving world with Matt Navarra; renowned social media consultant and industry expert. Reflecting on the key moments from 2023, Matt delves into the rise of private communities as the new frontier for content, sharing, and engagement. From Meta's strategic pivots to TikTok's ambitious foray into Live Shopping, Matt breaks down the developments that will continue to impact brands in the coming year.Discover the crucial trends brands must leverage to navigate the touchpoints of technology, consumer culture, and Social Commerce successfully. From the growing importance of user-generated content (UGC) to the power of authenticity in creator-led brand marketing, there's plenty of actionable insights for brands looking to thrive in the digital marketplace.Explore what lies ahead for the key platforms, including TikTok, Snapchat, Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp), and YouTube, as they race to innovate and capture the attention of billions of social users worldwide. From augmented reality (AR) integration to exclusive predictions on the future of the social media and commerce crossroads, you'll hear the roadmap for success over the next 3-5 years. Don't miss this insightful conversation; one that equips brand builders with the knowledge and strategies needed to thrive in the dynamic world of social commerce. Rate & review Building Brand Advocacy:Apple PodcastsSpotifyConnect with Matt:On LinkedIn Subscribe to his Geekout Newsletter Read his Speaker Notes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of The Influence Factor, Alessandro Bogliari, CEO & Co-Founder of The Influencer Marketing Factory, chats with Emeric Ernoult, CEO and Co-Founder of Agorapulse. Together, they explore marketing, social media, and business growth. Emeric shares strategies that fueled Agorapulse's success, discussing challenges in remote work, essential employee qualities, and current marketing trends. The conversation underscores the critical role of measurement in social media marketing, highlighting successful strategies like creating valuable content and building customer trust.

Episode 1083 : Youpi, c'est lundi et on vous offre les dernières actualités social servies sur un podcastUsages social media chez les - 18Rapport de Qustodio qui analyse les tendances d'utilisation des adolescentsPour ceux que ça tente le rapport fait 115 pages et s'intitule Né connecté : La montée de la génération de l'IA.Un rapport d'enquête sur l'utilisation d'applications et d'outils en ligne menées auprès de plus de 400 000 familles avec des enfants âgés de 4 à 18 ans.2h 10 quotidien passés sur roblox pour les - définir 18.1h30 sur snapchat qui reste la 2 eme plateforme 1h52 / jours sur tiktok. Pour la France +120% de plus que l'an dernier+ 27% d'augmentation de la consultation de streaming YouTube / Netflix et DisneyTiktok projette des vidéos de 3O minutes15s 30s 1min 1min30 3min 5 min 10min en 2022 ce sont toutes les évolutions qu'a fait TikTok en terme de durée d'upload de vidéos ces 4 dernières années.Adjan tu as misé sur le retour de la vidéo longue en 2024 pour l'instant tu es dans le vrai !L'actualité nous vient de Matt Navarra, expert social media et super consultant .Lui il ne trifouille pas dans les algorithmes mais il a plutôt accès aux version Alpha avant les autres.En Octobre Tiktok commencait à expérimenter des téléchargements de 15 minutes mettant une pièce de plus sur le rallongement des vidéos .Et cette fois ce sont des vidéos de 30 minutes qui sont en test sur TikTok.BeReal lance RealBrandLe 24 janvier, dans un poste de blog, les deux patrons de l'application Be, Real ont annoncé qu'ils aller en 2024 souffrir au Marc et aux célébrités.Après une super année 2022, on a vu ces derniers mois, l'application stagner.Mais le cœur de cette plate-forme social était de jouer le contre-pied de TikTok ou de Instagram.On savait que l'application allez devoir trouver de nouvelles fonctionnalités pour continuer à progresser. Il existait un côté trop répétitif. L'élément différenciant de la plate-forme et le fait qu'on joue l'authenticité, avec peu de relations et qu'on ne cherche pas la quantité.La proximité est extrêmement forte avec ses amis sur la plate-forme.Tendance sur TikTok.On n'en a déjà parlé plusieurs fois dans le super délit mais TikTok est de plus en plus utilisé comme moteur de recherche. Et en ce mois de janvier Adobe a publié une étude sur ces recherches !C'est principalement la gen Z qui considère tik tok comme un moteur de recherche.Alors qu'est-ce qu'il recherche sur la plate-forme ?En numéro un avec 36 %, des nouvelles recettesAvec 35 % de la nouvelle musique.34 % des DIY ou des Tips - 30 % des conseils de mode - 29 % des conseils de Sport - 29 % des conseils beauté -26 % des recommandations de produits Retrouvez toutes les notes de l'épisode sur www.lesuperdaily.com ! . . . Le Super Daily est le podcast quotidien sur les réseaux sociaux. Il est fabriqué avec une pluie d'amour par les équipes de Supernatifs. Nous sommes une agence social media basée à Lyon : https://supernatifs.com. Ensemble, nous aidons les entreprises à créer des relations durables et rentables avec leurs audiences. Ensemble, nous inventons, produisons et diffusons des contenus qui engagent vos collaborateurs, vos prospects et vos consommateurs. Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

A reminder for new readers. That Was The Week collects the best writing on critical issues in tech, startups, and venture capital. I selected the articles because they are of interest. The selections often include things I entirely disagree with. But they express common opinions, or they provoke me to think. The articles are only snippets. Click on the headline to go to the original. I express my point of view in the editorial and the weekly video below.Thanks To This Week's Contributors: @TEDchris, @LilyWhitsitt, @RocketToLulu, @saeedtaji, @geneteare, @EricNewcomer, @jeffbeckervc, @jasonlk, @elonmusk, @benshapiro, @StevenLevy, @apple, @bheater, @bmw, @Growcoot, @illscience, @venturetwins, @omooretweets, @conniechanContents* Editorial: Civility and Civilization* Essays of the Week* US Seed Investment Actually Held Up Pretty Well For The Past 2 Years. Here's What That Means For 2024* Lower Valuations, Higher Bar: What It's Like To Raise A Seed Round In 2024 * Unicorns & Inevitabilities* Sequoia, Founders Fund, USV, Elad Gil & Benchmark Top Venture Manager Survey* Why 2024 May Be Tougher on Venture Capital Than 2023* Video of the Week* The Mac at 40* AI of the Week* BMW will deploy Figure's humanoid robot at South Carolina plant* Google's New AI Video Generator Looks Incredible* OpenAI's Sam Altman seeks funds for AI chip factories as demands surge* The Future of Prosumer: The Rise of “AI Native” Workflows* Andreessen Horowitz's Connie Chan to Leave as Consumer Focus Shifts to AI* OpenAI Is a (Relative) Steal* News Of the Week* Ted fellows resign from organisation after Bill Ackman named as speaker* Tesla's Slowdown Disqualifies It From ‘Magnificent Seven' Group* TikTok's Testing 30 Minute Uploads as It Looks To Expand Its Content Options* Instagram to scan under-18s' messages to protect against ‘inappropriate images'* Tiger Global Investor Relations Staff Depart After Fundraising Challenges* Worldcoin hints at new Orb for a friendlier iris-scanning experience* Startup of the Week* Loyalty Startup Bilt Rewards Hits $3.1B Valuation After $200M Round* X of the Week* Elon Musk visits Auschwitz with Ben ShapiroEditorialThere is a lot to digest in this week's newsletter. Gené Teare's two essays on Seed investing head up the Essays of the Week, along with Jeff Becker talking about unicorns and inevitabilities, Eric Newcomer on who are the top investors and Jason Lemkin on the reasons 2024 might be harder for Venture Capital than 2023.But my attention was distracted from venture capital by a Guardian article announcing (triumphantly, I might add) that several TED fellows had resigned from the organization due to an invite to Bill Ackman to speak at this year's TED event in Vancouver.“Lucianne Walkowicz and Saeed Taji Farouky accuse Ted of taking anti-Palestinian stand over controversial billionaire's inclusion”It seems Ackman is not alone. They also object to Bari Weiss being invited. The leavers are also not alone; up to 30 others have signed a “solidarity” letter.The accusations echo much of the discussion around the medieval assassination of Jews on 7 October and Israel's efforts to defeat Hamas in the aftermath. Because these speakers are against anti-Semitism and so supportive of Israel's war against Hamas, they are accused of the ridiculous claim of supporting “Genocide” against Palestinians.“We refuse for our work and identities to be exploited to promote the Ted brand while the organisation and its speakers generate income and advance their careers through dehumanising Palestinians and justifying their genocide,” the pair said.It probably will not surprise readers of this newsletter that I applaud TED curators Chris Anderson and Lily James Olds for not backing down on the invitations. Whatever one believes about the current conflict in Israel, it is clear that banning opponents of anti-Semitism because of their stance is not a solution to anything. I believe the cause of fighting anti-Semitism should be close to the heart of any progressive person. It is not anti-Palestinian to support Jews against being slaughtered in the street, to oppose anti-Semitism, or to condemn Hamas as anti-Jewish murderers. Supporting Jews against slaughter by Hamas is not incompatible with supporting Palestinians. The Guardian reported that Ackman responded to the resignations with a statement:“I stand unapologetically with Israel and against antisemitism and terrorism, while strongly supporting the Palestinian people. Attempts to cancel speech and eliminate the free and respectful exchange of ideas among people with differing views are driving much of the divisiveness that plagues our nation. Truth, wisdom and ultimately peace are the result of the free exchange of ideas and debate, precisely what Ted is all about. It is sad that this is not more widely understood,”Unsurprisingly, one of the resigners, Farouky, told the Guardian he did not regard the issue as freedom of speech. It clearly IS about freedom of speech. Speech only needs protecting when opinions are wide apart and strongly held.For example, here are my views on the actual issues:These are trying times. Over 25,000 deaths in Gaza are hard to comprehend. And I certainly cannot. But I can understand that Jews have to defend themselves. And I can understand that progressive thinkers MUST stand up to anti-Semitism, whatever form it takes.In case there is doubt about my support for Muslim victims of racism, my book Under Seige is about the attacks on Muslims in the UK between 1961 and 1981. It starts with recognizing that racism targets differences and that Jews and Muslims are both targets. Indeed, the very ghettoes that Pakistani and Bengali immigrants were being attacked in had earlier, in the 1930s, been inhabited by Jewish settlers fleeing pogroms. I am not Jewish, and I am not Muslim. But I will always be on both of their sides when they are attacked for their ethnic and racial origin.In Israel, Jews were killed for being Jews. Palestinians are being killed because Hamas is hiding in their cities and buildings. I do not consider Israel's response to be racist against Palestinians. I consider it reasonable in the context of 7 October. I consider that Hamas has done this to Palestinians and probably wanted that outcome. I am sad that Hamas has done this for the Palestinian victims. But I do not doubt that Hamas is to blame.My views may anger you. But do you want me banned or silenced?My title this week is Civility and Civilization. The TED events bring both to the fore. Like those I write here, opinions are there to be disagreed with, debated, and interrogated. Civilized behavior requires dialogue and civility within the dialogue. I certainly understand opinions I disagree with, and far from banning them or walking away so that I do not have to hear them, I want to hear them. We all should.This is a different editorial than usual. I hope the humanity of refusing to forget 7 October and the determination to preserve the view that fighting anti-Semitism is a non-negotiable minimum requirement of civilization are grasped. By the same token, Islamaphobia must be fought. But in Israel, there is no Islamophobia at work. Jews are simply reacting to an atrocity. They are right to blame Hamas.Essays of the WeekUS Seed Investment Actually Held Up Pretty Well For The Past 2 Years. Here's What That Means For 2024Gené Teare, January 24, 2024, @geneteareEditor's note: This is the first in a two-part series on the state of seed startup investing at the start of 2024. Check back tomorrow for Part 2.Despite a broad pullback in global startup investment over the past two years, investors say the U.S. seed funding environment was the most vibrant compared to other funding stages during the downturn.In fact, U.S. seed funding in 2022 grew by close to 10% in terms of dollars invested, in contrast to a downturn at all other funding stages. In 2023, U.S. seed funding fell 31% — a significant proportion — but still less than other funding stages year over year, an analysis of Crunchbase data shows. (It's also worth noting that those other stages had already experienced year-over-year declines in 2022.)In the current startup funding market, “we're seeing a lot more great talent excited about starting things,” said Renata Quintini, co-founder of Renegade Partners, a Bay Area-based investment firm that focuses on Series A companies and is therefore close to the seed ecosystem.Other investors share that enthusiasm. “Valuations are coming down, more talent is available in the market,” said Michael Cardamone of New York-based seed investor Forum Ventures. “A lot of these companies at seed and Series A are going to scale into what will likely be the next bull market.”Seed trends over the decadeSeed as an asset class, not surprisingly, has grown in the U.S. over the past decade. In 2014 less than $5 billion was invested at seed. At the market peak in 2022, seed investment was more than $16 billion, although it fell to $11.5 billion in 2023.Despite the downturn, seed funding in 2023 was still $2 billion to $3 billion higher in the U.S. than in the pre-pandemic years of 2019 and 2020.Higher bar, pricier rounds, better valuedBut in a tougher market, seed investors are being more selective about which companies they fund.“We're being far more disciplined and patient knowing how hard it is for these companies to get to Series A and beyond,” said Jenny Lefcourt, a general partner at Bay Area-based seed investor Freestyle Capital. “Our bar for conviction is higher than it had been in the heyday where everything was getting funded.”In the slower funding environment, the firm has been investing later at the seed stage, “gravitating toward ‘seed plus' or ‘A minus' — pick your favorite term for it — because I feel like I get to see more risk mitigated. I get to see more data,” she said.Freestyle seeks to have ownership of around 12% to 15% in the companies it backs. “The reason is because of our model,” Lefcourt said. “We are low-volume, high-conviction investors.”And because the firm invests in companies that are pre-Series A, “our reality has been that our valuations have actually been higher in this market, which is not what we would have predicted.“But the data we've seen is, we're not alone in that,” she said.…MoreLower Valuations, Higher Bar: What It's Like To Raise A Seed Round In 2024 Gené Teare, January 25, 2024, @geneteareEditor's note: This is the second in a two-part series on the state of seed startup investing at the start of 2024. Read Part 1, which looked at seed funding trends over the past decade and the median time period between seed and Series A funding, here.Seed funding to startups has grown into its own asset class over the past decade, with round sizes trending larger, and a bigger pool of investors backing these nascent startups. But in the aftermath of 2021's venture funding heyday and subsequent pullback, investors say that while seed funding has held up better than other startup investment stages, these very young startups will see lower valuations and must now clear a much higher bar to get backing.More companies raised seed funding above $1 million in 2021. Those companies — which raised during a record-smashing year for venture funding — are saddled with valuations that could be too high for this current market — even at seed. Many of those startups have been forced to cut costs to extend their runways, and face a tougher sales environment.“You could then be sacrificing growth, which is one of the main levers that Series A investors are looking for,” said Michael Cardamone of New York-based seed investor Forum Ventures.2021 after effectsIn 2021 it was “grow, grow, grow, grow,” said Jenny Lefcourt, a general partner at Bay Area-based seed investor Freestyle Capital. “It's embarrassing to look back on, but that was the game being played.”Investors got sloppy during the boom times, she said. “I think a lot of VCs were thrilled to back you, and then say, ‘we'll figure it out.' ”“The reality is that almost anything that was done then — call it 2021 — was the wrong price,” she said.This led to down rounds, even at seed, though those are generally not viewed negatively like they were in the past, she said.In fact, “when our companies get their down rounds done, it's a sign of it's a good business. It just had the wrong price on it,” she said.While the bar is higher to raise funding these days, “I think it's so much better for a company who gets to start in this environment,” Lefcourt said.Down rounds can actually be a sign of conviction, she said. “None of us would do all the heavy lifting to not only give the company more capital, but recap it, which takes a lot. It's a heavy lift — none of us would do that if we weren't super jazzed about the company. The lazier approach, the easier approach, is to just put it on the note, keep it flat, and be done,” she said.Renata Quintini, co-founder of Renegade Partners, a Bay Area-based investment firm that focuses on Series A companies, is hearing of “more ‘pay-to-play' these days and it's starting to get ugly.” This happens when new investors wipe out the prior investors, and anyone seeking equity needs to pony up into the new funding round.Median and averages climbNonetheless, “seed round valuations haven't dropped a ton from even the peak,” according to Forum Ventures' Cardamone. But, “the bar to raise a seed [round] is a lot higher.”“Most first-time founders especially, and the vast majority of founders generally — they have to get significant traction to be able to raise that same round they used to be able to raise. And a lot fewer of those rounds are happening,” he said.“A priced seed round of $3 million at $15 million [pre-money] is still happening, but you might have to be at $500,000 ARR, to raise that round now. Whereas in 2021, it was the norm to raise that round pre-revenue,” he said.Series A fundings have gotten harder as “companies are going out and raising three seed rounds,” said Cardamone.Based on an analysis of Crunchbase data, median and average seed round sizes in the U.S. have climbed through the past decade.In 2023, median and average raises are not far from the peak of 2022, Crunchbase data shows, and were well above pre-pandemic levels. (However, this will shift downward somewhat as the long tail of seed fundings are retroactively added to the Crunchbase database.)Seed rounds got larger“If I have conviction, we may need them to have more money, cause we know it's going to take them longer to reach the milestones that are now higher,” said Lefcourt.Per an analysis of Crunchbase data, larger seed rounds — those $1 million and above — have increased through the decade.The amount of funding to seed-stage companies below $1 million hasn't budged much, and is a fraction of what it was earlier in the decade.Seed below $1 million in 2014 represented around 25% of all seed funding.That has come down as a proportion every year since then.And as of 2021 that proportion has dipped below 10% for the first time, ranging from 5% to 7% of all seed dollars invested in the U.S. since then.Earlier in the past decade, the number of seed deals in rounds below $1 million outpaced those rounds at $1 million and above significantly.But 2021 was once again a pivotal year. That's when $1 million and above seed rounds outpaced smaller seed for the first time.In 2023, they are neck and neck in count. (That might shift as the long tail of seed rounds are added to the Crunchbase database long after they close.)What this all shows is that seed has become an increasingly significant and elongated phase in a company's early life cycle, where companies are raising multiple million-dollar seed rounds. And as of late, more companies than ever before are wading in the seed pool.What does this mean for the seed funding market in 2024?…MoreUnicorns & InevitabilitiesUp and to the right, or not so much?JEFF BECKER, JAN 22, 2024TLDR: Go read Aileen Lee's update to the Unicorn Club… and a few inevitabilities.Did anyone catch Aileen Lee & Allegra Simon's Welcome Back to the Unicorn Club, 10 Years Later?If not, go read it. That's your MMM.If you did read it, you can't help but wonder if the tech sector isn't going to resemble the public markets over time. Ups and downs, but consistently up and to the right over a long enough period.After all, we are creating leverage in ways we've never seen before.And for unicorns, that meant 14X growth over a 10-year period.Could you imagine another 14 or even 10X from here? That would be stratospheric, from ~500 to ~5,000 unicorns? What if the exit sizes did too? $5B, $10B, $50B?Crazy to think, but hardly impossible. After all, we've already seen near-centicorns like Uber's IPO at $75B in 2019.The interesting part about that thought exercise though is not the crazy zero interest rate IPO's, but the fact that entry valuations didn't and don't move nearly as fast as top end outcomes because of the time horizon to realizing them.For example, Airbnb raised $20K from Y Combinator for 6%, then they took another $600K for 20% in their seed.That was 2009. The idea of an IPO for $47B just 11 years later in 2020 probably wasn't even a consideration. Paul Graham and the YC team would've had to believe Airbnb's IPO could compete with AT&T, General Motors, and Visa.Insane.Fast forward, that $333,333 valuation at YC has moved to $1.78m (125K for 7%), and they'll stack another 2.6% ownership on average from their $375K MFN with the average YC company raising seed at a $14.4m cap instead of Airbnb's $3m.That's a ~5X increase in valuation at pre-seed & seed for a 47X increase in IPO size if you were modeling $1B outcomes into your VC fund model in 2009.I'm not saying that will continue. There are counterforces of course.* Margins are way too high. The fact that software margins have persisted at 80% or more is just craziness. Companies will start to use price more aggressively to compete for market share as cheap AI tools enter the market and try to unseat them. This compression will change the value of discounted cash flow models.* Pricing models need to change. One way to reduce sticker price and maintain some semblance of healthy long-term margins is to pay a smaller implementation fee, but incur ongoing services & upgrade costs. This is a more traditional pricing model, and creative economics that leverage this kind of thinking run rampant in the titans of tech. It's a game of deeper roots, higher switching costs, and long-term contracts. With API calls and data usage more prevalent, we'll also see more pay-per-use models, the same way we buy copiers. We'll also see more pay-for-performance models with attributable ROI, akin to Amazon's ACoS model or Rakuten's affiliate marketing model. Customers will prefer it too, placing a higher emphasis customer value. This will also drive margins to condense.* AI, AI, AI. AI will cut OpEx costs dramatically. SDR teams, gone. Copywriters at agencies, you don't need as many. Data scientists? Just run a query against your data lakes. The list goes on. Costs of running these companies is going to get shellacked. Good for margins for sure, but also a compelling opportunity for newcomers to undercut and unseat incumbents too.* More hardware. With software margins condensing, hardware margins will start to feel more attractive too, the maintenance and upgrade fees will resemble what we see in SaaS, and the software that powers these machines will be incredible. Skynet for autonomous off-road vehicles, absolutely.* Less dilution, earlier exits, and stratification. We already see it in the S&P 500 with the top end accounting for an outsized share of total value. With that kind of cash on balance sheets, bigger companies will just buy the smaller ones. Think about how Broadcom rolls up companies. If you've built the business more efficiently, you've also raised less, incurred less dilution, and that $100m exit when you still own 50% is looking pretty prett-ty good compared to the same outcome 5-10 grueling years later to own 5% of $1B.* Massive founder salaries, less emphasis on growth. If you've built a company that's profitable from day one, and you have complete control of your board, what's your incentive to keep the pedal down on growth, or stay on the VC treadmill? World domination? Why not pay yourself 10X, stop fundraising, and continue to tighten the core business until someone acquires you? It's better for the founding team and employees for sure, and it's probably better for customers in most instances too.These are just some of things I think we'll see over the next five years until we approach ZIRPy-dirpy times again and massive growth becomes irresistible.But there are also a whole slew of things I think are inevitabilities that will benefit from these dynamics because we will not only have new technologies, with more attractive pricing, but we will be tackling new opportunities that were created by the prior evolutions across adjacent industries.For example…* Cost of energy is going to zero with nuclear fusion* Longevity is starting to work; check out Loyal for Dogs* Batteries & cameras continue to improve; medical devices, for one, will be more personal & affordable* Disintermediation of big ad networks with new global distribution channels; check out Benjamin* Massive cost reductions driven by AI* Software will be built by software* An aging population is retiring (10,000 per day); wealth transfer & SMB's with no exit paths* Climate change* …and so on and so on and so onThe list is long. Much longer than this. If you want the rest, just reply or comment so that I know, and I'll go deeper next week.Net of all of it, I think we're going to see a tale of two cities. Stronger, more profitable businesses, with smaller, but better founder founder exits in the near term, and a continued growth both in number of total unicorns, and what that top-end outcomes look like in the longer-term.And like I said, go read Aileen's post.Sequoia, Founders Fund, USV, Elad Gil & Benchmark Top Venture Manager SurveyI got my hands on a VC scorecard circulating among top founders & VCsERIC NEWCOMERJAN 25, 2024Before we get started, I want to be clear — this isn't the end-all, be-all list of the top venture capital firms or the most promising startups.But I got my hands on a survey of 91 people at 69 different venture capital firms conducted by a well-respected investor in venture capital firms.The survey results are spreading hand-to-hand in Silicon Valley. The results of the survey rank the most desirable venture capital firms and companies, according to VCs themselves. When I was out in San Francisco last week for The Information's 10th anniversary gala, sources kept bringing it up.My sources tell me that the survey was conducted by Ed Hutchinson, managing partner at Golden Bell Partners. Hutchinson is ignoring my emails.Which firms and companies would top VCs themselves put their money into? It's a question everyone wants to know the answer to.I've got my hands on their list of favorites:Firms* (1) Sequoia* (2) Founders Fund* (3) Union Square* (4) Elad Gil* (5) Benchmark…Much More (but only for subscribers)Why 2024 May Be Tougher on Venture Capital Than 2023by Jason Lemkin | Blog Posts, Fundraising, ScaleSo I thought the toughest times for venture would be behind us now.  In 2022, we were in free fall, with public market caps falling like a knife, and the IPO markets frozen.  And 2023 was the year of the Work Out in venture.  Bridge rounds slowed down, and VCs acknowledged a lot of portfolio companies just weren't going to make it.  It got real in 2023, and that realness got normalized.  The drama mostly was behind us.  And public SaaS stocks in many cases did really, really well in 2023.  So shouldn't 2024 at least be better for venture?So I thought.But the reality is I'm a bit more worried the venture drama in 2024 will be bigger than 2023.  Why?  Four core reasons:#1:  Now We Have to Deal With the Reality of the Stumbling Unicorns.The ones that are doing $100m+ ARR, still growing, but there just isn't going to be any more money coming.  This is going to burn up a ton of energy in VC funds.  Even tougher, the reality is while many VC funds marked down their unicorns to lower valuations in 2023, they often didn't mark them down enough.#2.  The Chase for AI Unicorns and Decacorns is All-consuming.  It's Still 2021 There.The one place where paper money seems easy to come by is Hot AI Startups.   And that's probably not you.  It's just consuming all the oxygen in venture, trying to get into the next Imaging AI startup worth $1B in 10 months.  In AI, 2021 never went away.  In AI, it's still 2021.#3.  A Lot of Seasoned VCs are Discouraged. This Doesn't Help Founders.A lot of VCs who have been around for a while are quietly discouraged.  They just don't see a great path to making a ton of money in venture these days.  We're in Year 3 of a venture downturn, and that weighs of most of us.  At a practical level, for founders, it makes it harder to lean it.#4.  More Valuation Markdowns Are Still to ComeRelated to the first point, but more markdowns are like mutliple rounds of layoffs.  They're just tough.  LPs lose confidence.  Coworkers lose confidence.  We should have gotten through a lot of this in 2023, but we didn't.  Personally, I've got several investments for example that I marked down. 70%-80% or more — that my co-investors didn't mark down at all.#5.  VCs Have Run out of ReservesVCs used what extra “reserve” capital they had for bridge rounds in 2022 and 2023.  Now it's gone.  That's adds to the stress as companies struggle.  You don't have a play anymore.The bottom line is there likely is at least another full year of working through the excesses of 2021.  That will weigh across venture.  No matter what some AI headlines suggest.Video of the WeekThe Mac at 40Apple Shares the Secret of Why the 40-Year-Old Mac Still RulesThe pioneering PC revolutionized how people interact with computers. As the Mac enters its fifth decade, Apple says it will continue to evolve.STEVEN LEVY, Jan 19, 2024 10:00 AMON JANUARY 24, Apple's Macintosh computer turns 40. Normally that number is an inexorable milestone of middle age. Indeed, in the last reported sales year, Macintosh sales dipped below $30 billion, more than a 25 percent drop from the previous year's $40 billion. But unlike an aging person, Macs now are slimmer, faster, and last much longer before having to recharge.My own relationship with the computer dates back to its beginnings, when I got a prelaunch peek some weeks before its January 1984 launch. I even wrote a book about the Mac—Insanely Great—in which I described it as “the computer that changed everything.” Unlike every other nonfiction subtitle, the hyperbole was justified. The Mac introduced the way all computers would one day work, and the break from controlling a machine with typed commands ushered us into an era that extends to our mobile interactions. It also heralded a focus on design that transformed our devices.That legacy has been long-lasting. For the first half of its existence, the Mac occupied only a slice of the market, even as it inspired so many rivals; now it's a substantial chunk of PC sales. Even within the Apple juggernaut, $30 billion isn't chicken feed! What's more, when people think of PCs these days, many will envision a Macintosh. More often than not, the open laptops populating coffee shops and tech company workstations beam out glowing Apples from their covers. Apple claims that its Macbook Air is the world's best-selling computer model. One 2019 survey reported that more than two-thirds of all college students prefer a Mac. And Apple has relentlessly improved the product, whether with the increasingly slim profile of the iMac or the 22-hour battery life of the Macbook Pro. Moreover, the Mac is still a thing. Chromebooks and Surface PCs come and go, but Apple's creation remains the pinnacle of PC-dom. “It's not a story of nostalgia, or history passing us by,” says Greg “Joz” Joswiak, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing, in a rare on-the-record interview with five Apple executives involved in its Macintosh operation. “The fact we did this for 40 years is unbelievable.”…Much MoreAI of the WeekBMW will deploy Figure's humanoid robot at South Carolina plantBrian Heater @bheater / 3:00 AM PST•January 18, 2024Image Credits: FigureFigure today announced a “commercial agreement” that will bring its first humanoid robot to a BMW manufacturing facility in South Carolina. The Spartanburg plant is BMW's only in the United States. As of 2019, the 8 million-square-foot campus boasted the highest yield among the German manufacturer's factories anywhere in the world.BMW has not disclosed how many Figure 01 models it will deploy initially. Nor do we know precisely what jobs the robot will be tasked with when it starts work. Figure did, however, confirm with TechCrunch that it is beginning with an initial five tasks, which will be rolled out one at a time.While folks in the space have been cavalierly tossing out the term “general purpose” to describe these sorts of systems, it's important to temper expectations and point out that they will all arrive as single- or multi-purpose systems, growing their skillset over time. Figure CEO Brett Adcock likens the approach to an app store — something that Boston Dynamics currently offers with its Spot robot via SDK.Likely initial applications include standard manufacturing tasks such as box moving, pick and place and pallet unloading and loading — basically the sort of repetitive tasks for which factory owners claim to have difficulty retaining human workers. Adcock says that Figure expects to ship its first commercial robot within a year, an ambitious timeline even for a company that prides itself on quick turnaround times.The initial batch of applications will be largely determined by Figure's early partners like BMW. The system will, for instance, likely be working with sheet metal to start. Adcock adds that the company has signed up additional clients, but declined to disclose their names. It seems likely Figure will instead opt to announce each individually to keep the news cycle spinning in the intervening 12 months.Unlike some other humanoid designers (including Agility), Figure is focused on creating a dexterous, human like hand for manipulation. The thinking behind such an end effector is the same that's driving many toward the humanoid form factor in the first place: Namely, we've designed our workspaces with us in mind. Adcock alludes to Figure 01 being tasked with an initial set of jobs that require high dexterity.As for the importance of legs, the executive suggests that their importance for maneuvering during certain tasks is as — or more — important than things like walking up stairs and over uneven terrain, which tend to get most of the love during these conversations.…MoreGoogle's New AI Video Generator Looks IncredibleJAN 25, 2024MATT GROWCOOTGoogle has announced Lumiere: an AI video generator that looks to be one of the most advanced text-to-video models yet.The name Lumiere is seemingly a nod to the Lumiere brothers who are credited with putting on the first ever cinema showing in 1895. Just as motion picture was cutting-edge technology at the end of the 19th century, the Lumiere name is once more being associated with something new and original.The demo of Lumiere that Google put out focuses firmly on animals. The model can generate a scene using just text; much the same way AI image generators work, the user can dream up any scenario they would like to see a short video clip of.However, the user can also use an image as a prompt. Google provided multiple examples: including some that are real photos such as Joe Rosenthal's iconic Raising the Flag photo; “Soldiers raising the united states flag on a windy day” saw one of the 20th-centuries most recognizable photos suddently come to life as the soliders struggle with the flag that's being affected by gusts.Also in Lumiere is a “Video Stylization” setting which allows users to upload a source video and then ask the generative AI model for various element changes. For example, a person running may be suddenly turned into a toy made of colorful bricks.Another feature Google showed off is “Cinemagraphs”, where just a section of an image is animated while the rest stays still. “Video Inpainting” is included too which involves masking part of the image so that section can be changed to the user's desire.Space-Time Diffusion ModelLumiere is powered by “Space-Time U-Net architecture that generates the entire temporal duration of the video at once, through a single pass in the model.”This difficult-to-understand concept is apparently in contrast to existing video models which “synthesize distant keyframes followed by temporal super-resolution — an approach that inherently makes global temporal consistency difficult to achieve.”…Much MoreOpenAI's Sam Altman seeks funds for AI chip factories as demands surgeOpenAI CEO Sam Altman has opened discussions with global investors over the possibility of funding a network of artificial intelligence (AI) chip factories to keep pace with soaring demand.Altman is seeking around $8 billion to $10 billion worth of funds to set up several AI chip fabrication plants around the globe, an endeavor that will require synergy between leading chip manufacturers backed by investment giants.Altman is reportedly in talks with Japanese-based financial giant SoftBank Group (NASDAQ: SFTBF) and Abu Dhabi's G42 over funding plans, but details remain sparse. The discussions with G42 have been underway since 2023, with Altman describing a potential chip partnership as laying the foundation “for equitable advancements in generative AI across the globe.”Aside from SoftBank and G42, insiders say that Altman is still pursuing collaborations with other industry players to set up a network of chip fabrication plants. Although exact entities were not namechecked, industry experts are noting Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC), Samsung Electronics, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (NASDAQ: TSM) as potential partners.Altman's approach to raising funds hinges on concerns that the chip supply will not be able to meet global demands for AI offerings by 2030. The OpenAI's CEO argues that the ideal solution will be a collaborative effort to set up chip manufacturing plants rather than build in silos.OpenAI has had its fair share of chip scarcity, rolling back a number of its offerings over a steady chip supply. To meet the rising demand, the company is reportedly mulling several options, including the prospect of building its chips from scratch and joining ranks with Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) to explore an in-house solution.Given the costs associated with an in-house approach, OpenAI may pursue the acquisition of a chip manufacturer as a short-term solution or expand its collaboration with existing partners. However, a potential acquisition opens its own can of worms, including an inquiry by antitrust regulators.Governments are also involvedIn 2023, Altman urged the South Korean government to double their investments in AI chip manufacturing as a veritable strategy to play a leading role in the nascent ecosystem. Currently, South Korea ranks behind the U.S., China, and Japan in chip manufacturing, but a concerted government involvement could see the country climb up the charts.The OpenAI boss disclosed during his visit to South Korea that his firm will back local entities building chips for AI and other emerging technologies, with Samsung rumored to be in top position.“We are exploring how to increase our investment in Korean startups,” said Altman. “We are excited to meet as many as we can here today. I think this type of collaboration is essential to our work.”..MoreThe Future of Prosumer: The Rise of “AI Native” WorkflowsAnish Acharya, Justine Moore, and Olivia MoorePosted January 25, 2024Few people love the software they use to get things done. And it's no surprise why. Whether it's a slide deck builder, a video editor, or a photo enhancer, today's work tools were conceived decades ago — and it shows! Even best-in-class products often feel either too inflexible and unsophisticated to do real work, or have steep, inaccessible learning curves (we're looking at you, Adobe InDesign). Generative AI offers founders an opportunity to completely reinvent workflows — and will spawn a new cohort of companies that are not just AI-augmented, but fully AI-native. These companies will start from scratch with the technology we have now, and build new products around the generation, editing, and composition capabilities that are uniquely possible due to AI. On the most surface level, we believe AI will help users do their existing work more efficiently. AI-native platforms will “up level” user interactions with software, allowing them to delegate lower skill tasks to an AI assistant and spend their time on higher-level thinking. This applies not only to traditional office workers, but to small business owners, freelancers, creators, and artists — who arguably have even more complex demands on their time. But AI will also help users unlock completely new skill sets, on both a technical and an aesthetic level. We've already seen this with products like Midjourney and ChatGPT's Code Interpreter. Everyone can now be a programmer, a producer, a designer, or a musician, shrinking the gap between creativity and craft. With access to professional-grade yet consumer-friendly products with AI-powered workflows, everyone can be a part of a new generation of “prosumers.”In this piece, we aim to highlight the features of today's — and tomorrow's — most successful Gen AI-native workflows, as well as hypothesize about how we see these products evolving.What Will GenAI Native Prosumer Products Look Like?All products with Gen AI-native workflows will share one crucial trait: translating cutting-edge models into an accessible, effective UI.Users of workflow tools typically don't care what infrastructure is behind a product; they care about how it helps them! While the technological leaps we've made with Generative AI are amazing, successful products will importantly still start from a deep understanding of the user and their pain points. What can be abstracted away with AI? Where are the key “decision points” that need approval, if any? And where are the highest points of leverage? There are a few key features we believe products in this category will have: * Generation tools that kill the “blank page” problem. The earliest and most obvious consumer AI use cases have come from translating a natural language prompt into a media output — e.g., image, video, and text generators. The same will be true in prosumer. These tools might help transform true “blank pages” (e.g., a text prompt to slide deck), or take incremental assets (e.g., a sketch or an outline) and turn them into a more fleshed-out product.Some companies will do this via a proprietary model, while others may mix or stitch together multiple models (open source, proprietary, or via API) behind the scenes. One example here is Vizcom's rendering tool. Users can input a text prompt, sketch, or 3D model, and instantly get a photorealistic rendering to further iterate on.Another example is Durable's website builder product, which the company says has been used to generate more than 6 million sites so far. Users input their company name, segment, and location, and Durable will spit out a site for them to customize. As LLMs get more powerful, we expect to see products like Durable pull real information about your business from elsewhere on the internet and social media — the history, team, reviews, logos, etc. — and generate an even more sophisticated output from just one generation. * Multimodal (and multimedia!) combinations. Many creative projects require more than one type of content. For example, you may want to combine an image with text, music with video, or an animation with a voiceover. As of now, there isn't one model that can generate all of these asset types. This creates an opportunity for workflow products which allow users to generate, refine, and stitch different content types in one place.…MoreAndreessen Horowitz's Connie Chan to Leave as Consumer Focus Shifts to AIBy Kate Clark, Erin Woo and Cory WeinbergJan 23, 2024, 7:22am PSTFor years, partners at Andreessen Horowitz proclaimed they would scour the startup world for the next big consumer marketplace like Airbnb or the next hit consumer app out of China, areas in which the firm had unique expertise. Now, it's shifting toward an area more en vogue across venture capital: consumer apps powered by artificial intelligence.Those changes are happening amid an overhaul of its consumer team. Connie Chan, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz who formerly led a team of consumer investors and was known for spotting internet trends coming from China, said she is leaving the firm.  She may raise her own fund, a person familiar with the matter said. Anish Acharya, a general partner at the firm who invested in enterprise-focused and financial technology businesses, now leads the consumer team, said people familiar with the change.Chan's move also follows a distancing by U.S. VC firms from investments in China tech, once a hotbed for U.S.  investors. In recent months, Chan has privately said it's becoming more difficult for her to work at Andreessen Horowitz because the partners have been increasingly disinterested in anything China related, another person said.The Takeaway• Fintech-focused GP Anish Acharya leading consumer deals• Consumer GP Connie Chan is leaving the firm• Consumer partner Anne Lee Skates left to start own fundThe changes are part of a broader personnel shakeup, including the decision by senior consumer investor and Airbnb board member Jeff Jordan to step back from making new investments last year. Of the four general partners that led the firm through a consumer deal blitz, none remain on the consumer team.Meanwhile, Anne Lee Skates, a consumer partner who worked on the firm's investment in live shopping app WhatNot, left in the fall to raise her own fund, according to two people familiar with the matter. Axios first reported that Chan was leaving the firm.The Andreessen Horowitz changes are emblematic of a broader VC industry gravitation toward AI and away from once-hot sectors like consumer marketplaces and financial technology, as a spike in interest rates undercut the growth aspirations of startups trying to elbow out incumbent social platforms and banking institutions.“We've gotten into this cycle now where, generally speaking, investors are less interested in consumer,” said Ben Lerer, managing partner at Lerer Hippeau. Known for its consumer investments in Warby Parker and Allbirds, the firm has invested 70% of its latest fund in enterprise companies, he said. “And AI feels like this very hopeful, very exciting, fresh thing.”Founders of some consumer startups have noticed the shift at Andreessen Horowitz. One founder of a consumer startup in the firm's portfolio said they had heard little from investment partners over the last year, a contrast to a steady drumbeat of emails the founder got in prior years from Andreessen staff who support portfolio companies with marketing and operations advice.Andreessen Horowitz's consumer investing team has been perhaps most well known for its focus on backing digital marketplaces, from peer-to-peer self-storage to real estate investment marketplaces, that could turn into the next Airbnb. Every year, it releases a ranking of top marketplace startups. “We are obsessed with marketplaces and have been since our inception,” Chan, who led investments in  social fashion startup Cider for the firm in 2021.But some of those startups backed by the firm, such as self-storage startup Neighbor, have struggled to take off in recent years. And like other venture firms, Andreessen Horowitz has also stepped back from investing in Chinese startups, an area of focus for Chan. She had championed the idea that the next wave of breakout U.S. consumer startups will model themselves after China's internet success stories, like all-in-one app WeChat.With $53 billion in assets under management, Andreessen Horowitz is one of the largest of traditional Silicon Valley firms and closely watched among other VC firms as a trend setter. And its track record of sniffing out hitmakers primed its partners to find the next trendy consumer app.The number of consumer deals Andreessen Horowitz has led dropped to 13 last year from 30 in 2021, a record for the firm, according to PitchBook data. It's possible the firm completed more consumer deals and that those investments haven't been announced. Its investments in AI companies have jumped to 23 from nine over the same years, including leading a $415 million investment in Mistral, the French developer of an open-source large language model.The firm has beefed up this team of investors primarily focused on enterprise, software infrastructure and AI startups. Led by Martin Casado, a close confidante to the firm's founders Horowitz and Marc Andreessen, it is raising its first standalone fund and has brought on two new general partners, Anjney Midha and Zane Lackey, since 2022, as well as a number of junior partners.As the infrastructure team gained power, the consumer team's profile shrank. The firm in 2023 combined its consumer and fintech teams and created a new group, called apps, led by general partner Alex Rampell, who previously co-founded installment lender Affirm, The Information reported last year. Under Rampell's leadership, the newly formed apps team will also soon launch a dedicated apps fund, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. The consolidated team has been encouraged to pursue AI deals.Within Rampell's apps group, Acharya now leads the consumer sub-group. His portfolio of companies includes payroll company Deel and Silo, a provider of supply chain automation software. He's also an investor in Titan, a consumer investment application.Fueling the firm's shift away from consumer apps are likely disappointing returns. The startups that captivated consumers during the pandemic shutdowns have failed to retain their attention. Growth at companies the consumer team bet on, like Clubhouse, which Andreessen Horowitz backed three times in one year, and photo-sharing app BeReal, which it backed in 2021, has stalled.…MoreOpenAI Is a (Relative) StealBy Stephanie PalazzoloJan 22, 2024, 7:35am PSTOver the past year, we've seen billions in funding thrown at AI startups at eye-popping valuations. More important than the absolute valuation figures, though, is how they stack up to those startups' revenue numbers.In the chart above, we've tracked the valuations of eight AI startups that have recently raised funding, calculated against their projected revenue. On average, these companies raised money at a price that is 83 times their projected sales for the next twelve months. That's a big multiple by any measure, reflecting the rocket ship nature of these startups. But what makes the comparison noteworthy is that OpenAI has one of the lowest multiples, even though its business has the most traction.Venture capitalists tend to value early-stage startups at a premium based on their growth rates. OpenAI's business is far bigger and more mature—if we can use that word for a company growing as fast as OpenAI—than other generative AI companies. So, as fast as its revenue pace is growing—more than 20% in just two months most recently—newer firms are growing even faster.For instance, AI-powered search engine Perplexity AI doubled its annual recurring revenue from $3 million to $6 million from October to January. VCs were likely taking that expected growth into account at the time of investment, as the company would have garnered a much lower 75-times forward revenue multiple if it had raised at the same price just a few months later. Similarly, even though OpenAI rival Anthropic was likely generating around $200 million in annualized revenue at the end of last year (according to its October estimates), its projection that it would reach $850 million in annualized revenue by the end of this year surely made its mind-boggling valuation more palatable to investors.When you see the details of these AI startup funding rounds, it can sometimes feel like investors are throwing darts at nine-figure numbers on a wall. The chart suggests there's a method to the madness. Typically, startups selling to companies are valued based on the sector in which they operate. The lowest valuation multiples are accorded to startups offering industry-specific applications, while those offering more generalized applications draw a premium. The most highly valued firms are often infrastructure startups, which create the tools that developers use to build these apps. This order stems from how big the target market of these startups are, ranging from a specific industry (like healthcare or education) to all developers. We can see that general order reflected in burgeoning AI startups. For instance, Harvey, which sells an AI application for lawyers, has one of the lower multiples, while broader-reaching companies like Glean and VAST Data land higher multiples.It seems like investors aren't quite sure yet where model developers like OpenAI and Anthropic fall on this spectrum. Their costs are very different from a typical software startup due to how much computing power they need, and many investors are still worried that closed-source model developers may be overtaken by their cheaper, open-source counterparts.…MoreNews Of the WeekTed fellows resign from organisation after Bill Ackman named as speakerLucianne Walkowicz and Saeed Taji Farouky accuse Ted of taking anti-Palestinian stand over controversial billionaire's inclusionChris McGrealThe Ted organisation has been hit with resignations and criticisms after naming the controversial activist billionaire Bill Ackman, who was instrumental in forcing out Harvard's president over antisemitism allegations, among its main speakers at this year's conference.Four Ted fellows, led by the astronomer Lucianne Walkowicz and the filmmaker Saeed Taji Farouky, resigned from the group on Wednesday, accusing it of taking an anti-Palestinian stand and aligning itself “with enablers and supporters of genocide” in Gaza.“2024 main stage speaker Bill Ackman has defended Israel's genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people and has cynically weaponised antisemitism in his programme to purge American universities of Pro-Palestinian freedom of speech,” the pair wrote to Chris Anderson, who leads Ted, and Lily James Olds, director of the fellows programme.“We've become increasingly concerned about the fundamental values and moral compass of the organisation over the years, but with this year's speaker selection, it is clear Ted has crossed a red line.”The conference will be held in Vancouver, Canada, in April, under the banner The Brave and the Brilliant”. The theme of Ackman's talk has not been revealed but his selection was announced last week after he was accused of using his money and influence to help force Claudine Gay's resignation as Harvard's president following her disastrous appearance before Congress in December when she was questioned about on-campus antisemitism during the Israel-Gaza war.Ackman has taken stridently pro-Israel positions, including justifying the scale of the attacks on Gaza in which more than 25,000 Palestinians have been killed, mostly civilians, and the forced removal of about 2 million Palestinians from their homes. He has described criticism of Israel as antisemitism and called for the blacklisting from employment of American students who signed petitions denouncing the offensive in Gaza in the wake of the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel.Farouky and Walkowicz's resignation letter noted that other speakers announced by Ted include the journalist Bari Weiss, who they describe as having “a long, sordid, and well-documented history of anti-Palestinian speech”, but that there are no Palestinians in the line-up.“We refuse for our work and identities to be exploited to promote the Ted brand while the organisation and its speakers generate income and advance their careers through dehumanising Palestinians and justifying their genocide,” the pair said.After the resignation letter was published, two other fellows – the entrepreneur Ayah Bdeir and cosmologist Renée Hlozek – also quit. Nearly 30 others added their names “in solidarity” without leaving Ted.…MoreTesla's Slowdown Disqualifies It From ‘Magnificent Seven' GroupBy Martin Peers, Jan 24, 2024, 5:00pm PSTStock market pundits may want to come up with a new name for the big tech stocks driving the overall market. The “magnificent seven” descriptor—referring to Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Nvidia and Tesla—no longer seems to make much sense. I'd like to suggest that's because none of the company CEOs look like cowboy gunslingers from the 1960 movie that made the phrase famous. It's hard to imagine Steve McQueen playing Tim Cook or Andy Jassy, for instance (although Yul Brynner admittedly could have filled the role of horseback-riding Jeff Bezos).The real reason the moniker no longer works, however, is that at least one member of the group, Tesla, has had anything but a magnificent 2024 so far, and its fourth-quarter earnings report, released Wednesday, only made things worse. Before Tesla reported earnings tonight, its stock had fallen 16% so far this year, and it tumbled another 3% after hours to around $200 a share. This isn't a reaction to CEO Elon Musk's antics, which include asking for a bunch more stock, although that surely doesn't help. The stock decline reflects the slowdown in sales suffered by Tesla, which observers attribute to increased competition and a loss of government incentives. Automotive revenues, which make up the bulk of Tesla's top line, grew just 1% in the fourth quarter—down from 18% in the first quarter.In its outlook for this year issued today, the company said its growth in the volume of car sales would be lower than in 2023, and noted that its team is working on its “next-generation vehicle.” Meantime, expenses have been skyrocketing, eroding its profit margin. But our less-than-rigorous takedown of the magnificent seven branding isn't just about Tesla. If you look at the year-to-date performance of big tech stocks, or even their 2023 performance, you can see that just two tech stocks have roared this year. One is Nvidia, which is in a class of its own: up 27% since Jan. 1, thanks to its stranglehold on the specialized chips used in artificial intelligence. The other is Meta Platforms, which is up nearly 13%, reflecting confidence in its ad business.  In comparison, Microsoft and Alphabet are each up around 8%, likely thanks to expectations that AI will lift their businesses, while Apple and Amazon lag behind with year-to-date stock price rises of less than 5% each. Instead of the magnificent seven, it might be more appropriate to refer to the group as Nvidia, Meta and the humble five.… MoreTikTok's Testing 30 Minute Uploads as It Looks To Expand Its Content OptionsBy Andrew Hutchinson Content and Social Media ManagerThe next stage of TikTok is coming, with some users now seeing the option to upload 30 minute long videos in the app.As you can see in this example, shared by social media expert Matt Navarra, TikTok's currently testing the new 30 minute upload option in the beta version of the app.Which, if you've been paying attention, is not really any big surprise.TikTok has been steadily increasing its maximum post limit for years, with the platform originally starting at 15 seconds per clip, which was then extended to 60 seconds, then 3 minutes, then 5 minutes, before rising to 10 minutes in 2022.Last October, TikTok began experimenting with 15 minute uploads, so the trend towards longer clips isn't new.Though 30 minutes is likely the upper limit, based on the Chinese version of the app. Douyin, which is TikTok in China, expanded its upload limit to 30 minutes per clip in 2022, and it hasn't gone any further as yet.And presumably, Douyin has also seen good response to this longer time limit, which is why TikTok is now looking to implement the same, though it does seem like a long time to be watching a TikTok clip in-stream.Will users really warm to TV show length clips in the app?…MoreInstagram to scan under-18s' messages to protect against ‘inappropriate images'Feature will work even on encrypted messages, suggesting platform plans to implement client-side scanningAlex Hern and Dan MilmoInstagram will begin scanning messages sent to and from under-18s to protect them from “inappropriate images”, Meta has announced.The feature, being kept under wraps until later this year, would work even on encrypted messages, a spokesperson said, suggesting the company intends to implement a so-called client-side scanning service for the first time.But the update will not meet controversial demands for inappropriate messages to be reported back to Instagram servers.Instead, only a user's personal device will ever know whether or not a message has been filtered out, leading to criticism of the promise as another example of the company “grading its own homework”.“We're planning to launch a new feature designed to help protect teens from seeing unwanted and potentially inappropriate images in their messages from people they're already connected to,” the company said in a blogpost, “and to discourage them from sending these types of images themselves. We'll have more to share on this feature, which will also work in encrypted chats, later this year.”…Much MoreTiger Global Investor Relations Staff Depart After Fundraising ChallengesBy Francesca Friday and Maria HeeterJan 24, 2024, 4:46pm PSTSeveral Tiger Global Management employees focused on raising capital for the New York firm's venture funds have taken buyout offers, according to a person familiar with the matter. The departures of the staff, who worked with prospective investors, come as the firm has struggled to raise money for its latest venture capital fund after a collapse in startup valuations soured its paper returns for earlier funds.As of the second quarter of 2023, a $12.7 billion fund that Tiger started making investments from in October 2021 had a paper loss of 18%, calculated as an annualized return net of management fees, according to internal data distributed to investors in the fund. That's a slight improvement from six months earlier, when the 2021 fund showed a loss of 20%. The fund's performance is in the bottom quartile of funds started that year, the document said, and has also lagged the S&P 500's annualized net return in the same period.The Takeaway• Tiger employee buyouts are the latest example of VC cost-cutting• Tiger's $12.7 billion had lost 18% on paper as of June* Tiger could soon show a $350 million gain from OpenAI stakeAs of June 30, 2023, the $12.7 billion fund hadn't returned any cash to investors, which isn't unusual for such a young fund. But the paper losses are closely guarded secrets that reflect the kind of write-downs other venture firms have been making over the past two years as tech valuations have fallen.It isn't clear how big Tiger's investor relations team is, but the departures are the latest example of belt-tightening across the venture industry. Firms are raising smaller funds and striking fewer deals, reducing the need for sprawling support staff—including those who help firms raise money from pension funds and endowments...MoreWorldcoin hints at new Orb for a friendlier iris-scanning experienceby Vivian NguyenThe next-gen device will feature various colors and shapes to enhance its visual appeal.Worldcoin, an iris biometric crypto project, is set to launch a new Orb that aims to offer a more user-friendly iris-scanning experience, said Alex Blania, CEO and co-founder of Tools for Humanity, the developer behind the project, in an exclusive interview with TechCrunch today.“The next Orb will roll out in the first half of this year and will feature alternative colors and form factors in an effort to look ‘much more friendly,'” Blania explained. “Overall, it is going to look way more tuned down and similar to an Apple product.”Blania acknowledges that the initial design of the Orb predated his time at the company. “The new orb is coming and the next iterations will look quite different,” he remarked during a fireside chat at a recent StrictlyVC event, signaling a departure from the current, more controversial design.The goal of Worldcoin, as described by Blania, is to reach billions of users as fast as possible.“The thesis is very simple. We race toward billions of users as fast as we possibly can,” said Blania.Founded by Blania, Sam Altman, and Max Novendstern, Tools for Humanity has raised around $250 million from prominent investors like a16z and Bain Capital Crypto, among others. The project is famous for its unique Orb device designed to scan people's irises and assign them a “World ID,” granting access to Worldcoin's application and a digital passport. Worldcoin's vision is to authenticate individual identities and prevent the creation of multiple accounts.The current design of the Orb has been a topic of much debate due to its intimidating look, similar to a prop from a sci-fi movie, according to Blania. The company has also faced criticism for its beta testing approaches in developing economies and concerns over privacy and data security.Despite some skepticism, the Orb has seen practical use. At the StrictlyVC event in downtown San Francisco, a Tools for Humanity employee reported that a “couple dozen” attendees scanned their iris to receive a World ID. There has also been “field testing” of the new Orb design.…MoreStartup of the WeekLoyalty Startup Bilt Rewards Hits $3.1B Valuation After $200M RoundChris MetinkoJanuary 24, 2024Bilt Rewards, a loyalty rewards startup, raised a $200 million round led by General Catalyst at a $3.1 billion valuation — more than double the number after its last fundraising in 2022.The round also included participation from Eldridge Industries, Left Lane Capital, Camber Creek and Prosus Ventures.The New York-based startup allows consumers to earn rewards on the rent they pay. Bilt plans to use some of the proceeds to expand its network to include local dining, grocery stores, ridesharing and other retail purchases.“We're not just building a loyalty program; we're creating a community-centric ecosystem that benefits everyone from renters to local businesses,” said founder and CEO Ankur Jain.The company also appointed some big names to roles in the company. Bilt named Ken Chenault, former chairman and CEO of American Express, as its chairman, and Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the NFL, as an independent director.Big moneyThe company reported its annualized member spend is nearing $20 billion. It also became profitable on an earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization basis last year.Those metrics must have impressed investors, as Bilt has seen its valuation shoot up after raising a $150 million Series B at a pre-money valuation of $1.4 billion in October 2022. Founded in 2021, the company has raised a total of $413 million, per Crunchbase.Last year was a slow go for loyalty startups. Such companies raised only $74 million, per Crunchbase data. However in 2022, loyalty startups raised more than a half-billion dollars thanks to big raises that included Bilt's Series B and Madison, Wisconsin-based Fetch's $240 million Series E.With this fundraise, things are looking up for loyalty startups again.X of the Week This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thatwastheweek.substack.com/subscribe

Sackings, a rebrand and paid-for verification: Elon Musk's first year at X reviewed. Can Twitter's successor survive in the long term? Consumer group Which? uses ChatGPT to create spam PayPal emails. How Meta's spicing things up on Threads. Intel's banging new hold music… In this episode:Social media expert Matt Navarra discusses Elon's first year owning TwitterOur tech correspondent Simon Hunt examines the future of XCharities celebrate as Online Safety Bill finally becomes lawFord hits the brakes on $12 billion in EV spendingRocket company given £3.5m ahead of Shetland space launchIntel reveals new hip-hop hold musicFollow us on X or on Threads. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week's episode of The Influence Factor podcast, Alessandro Bogliari, CEO and Co-Founder of The Influencer Marketing Factory and the podcast's host, is joined by Jasmine Enberg, a Principal Analyst specializing in Social Media at Insider Intelligence. Together, they delve into the daily routine of staying informed about the ever-evolving social media landscape, the obstacles of sifting through the noise, and the factors that captivate an analyst when navigating the realms of social media and the creator economy, and much more!

The Chinese president Xi Jinping has reaffirmed his country's close economic ties with Russia and hit out at international sanctions. He was speaking as the two-day Belt and Road forum in Beijing came to a close. Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks with Xi on the sidelines of the event. Our China Correspondent Stephen McDonnell gives us the latest from Beijing. Social media platform X, formerly Twitter, has announced plans to start charging new users in the Philippines and New Zealand $1 a year to sign up. Social media analyst Matt Navarra assesses whether the move will help rid the site of bots. Nigerian authorities have burned $1.4m worth of illegal pangolin scales. Maria Diekmann of conservation group Pangolins International, which has a project in Nigeria, explains what's being done to crack down on the illicit trade and protect the endangered mammals.

In this week's episode of The Influence Factor podcast, Alessandro Bogliari, CEO and Co-Founder of The Influencer Marketing Factory and the podcast's host, dives into a conversation with Matt Whitteker, the CEO at MILLIONS, and Brandon Austin, the Co-Founder and CMO at MILLIONS. Throughout their discussion, they explore various subjects, such as athlete content creation, diversified revenue streams, the expansion of likeness and personal branding, and predictive insights into the future of athletes' businesses.

Today Dean welcomes world-renowned social media consultant, Matt Navarra, to the show. Matt Navarra, a name synonymous with expertise in the digital realm, boasts over two decades of invaluable experience in the social media industry. Hailing from Europe, he has left an indelible mark on the global stage, collaborating with some of the planet's most iconic brands. In this thrilling conversation, Dean dives deep into Matt's treasure trove of knowledge, extracting insights that promise to enlighten both social media enthusiasts and marketing aficionados. From decoding the ever-evolving algorithms to dissecting the strategies behind viral campaigns, Matt Navarra's wisdom is bound to leave you shocked. Tune in and discover how Matt's journey has shaped the social media landscape, and gain a glimpse into the mind of one of Europe's most sought-after digital gurus.

In this week's episode of The Influence Factor podcast, Alessandro Bogliari, CEO and Co-Founder of The Influencer Marketing Factory, is joined by Jessy Grossman, the Founder of Women in Influencer Marketing. During this episode, they explore various aspects of Jessy's career journey, strategies for staying abreast of the ever-evolving industry, valuable approaches for community-building and networking, and much more.

In this week's episode, Alessandro Bogliari, the CEO and Co-Founder of The Influencer Marketing Factory and the podcast's host, has an engaging conversation with Adrienne Lahens, who serves as TikTok's Global Head of Operations, and Sofia Hernandez, the Global Head of Business Marketing at TikTok. These three influential experts explore the intricate relationship between culture, attention, analytics, successful case studies, and creator-led marketing in today's digital realm.

In this week's podcast episode, Alessandro Bogliari, CEO and Co-Founder of The Influencer Marketing Factory and podcast host, engages in an enlightening conversation with Jerry Won, Founder of Just Like Media and Always Be Creating. Together, they delve into an array of topics, including Asian American creators, the nuances of impact and influence, effective use of Linkedin, and much more.

Over the past two decades, the world of social media has undergone a remarkable evolution, reshaping the way we connect, communicate, and consume content. As a seasoned consultant, Matt Navarra has stood as a vigilant observer and an active participant. He's not only witnessed the shifts but has also been at the forefront of guiding brands and institutions through these seismic changes.  In today's episode we speak with the seasoned social media consultant, Matt Navarra. With a career spanning over two decades, Matt brings a wealth of experience to the table, sharing captivating stories and insights on the ever-changing landscape of digital platforms. Matt's success is a testament to adaptability, innovation, and the power of staying ahead in a rapidly shifting industry.  Join us as we delve into an array of fascinating stories that have shaped the digital sphere, guided by a trailblazer in the field.

Don't miss out on this week's episode of The Influence Factor podcast, as Alessandro Bogliari, CEO and Co-Founder of The Influencer Marketing Factory and the show's host, engages in an insightful conversation with Matt Navarra, a respected Social Media Consultant and Industry Analyst. Together, they explore a wide array of captivating topics, including the art of crafting a personal brand, leveraging social platforms for success, the transformative potential of generative AI, and many more.

A social media expert talks about the pros and cons of jumping on the latest social app bandwagon

Is Threads a threat to Twitter or new fad that will fade? What are some of the initial reactions of social media experts? These are some of the questions Claire Atkinson is tackling in The Media Mix. This episode is all about where social media is headed next with Gary Vee talking about Web3, Matt Navarra discussing Threads and the future of social plus Emily Bell on whether politics and news will come to dominate Threads despite Meta's intentions. Then entrepreneur Jon Bond has some new ideas for Twitter. For more, subscribe to the podcast and The Media Mix newsletter. Have ideas? Email us at themediamixus@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Threads have been the talk of the social media town. Excitement is all around, but not just for the newest social media platform. It has also triggered a fight between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.  So, who is winning a cage fight between the two tech billionaires? We stitch together everything you need to know about Threads and all that it brings. Also, why does this matter for India? Host Dia Rekhi talks to  - Matt Navarra, social media guru - Neil Shah, top tech business analyst - Mishi Choudhary, a prominent legal voice on online civil liberties Tune in to this episode of ‘The Morning Brief'.  Credits: Colors TV If you like this episode from Dia Rekhi, you can check out her episodes - Twitter Tales, India vs Europe: Regulatory Rift, ChatGPT Explained and Explored, Band, Baaja, Billions and more. You can follow our host Dia Rekhi on her social media: Twitter & Linkedin Catch the latest episode of ‘The Morning Brief' on ET Play, The Economic Times Online, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, JioSaavn, Amazon Music and Google Podcasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Twitter is now worth only $15 billion. That's nearly a third of the $44 billion that Elon Musk paid for the platform back in 2022. Declining in popularity among its users, at what point did things go really wrong for Twitter? And now with the arrival of rival social media app Threads, masterminded by his cage-fighting nemesis Mark Zuckerberg, could this be the final straw? Anton is joined by Matt Navarra, Social Media Consultant and Industry Analyst.

#TwitterSpaces #Clubhouse #SocialAudioThis week Madalyn and Suze discuss how the new Subscriptions feature will impact Spaces. There's also talk about the shady art of pre-recorded content on Clubhouse being used to up-sell full recordings of a Room - or is it genius? Plus, for a minute there we thought captions had returned to Spaces and new ways to promote social audio content on Instagram with an overhaul of ‘link in bio' Links mentioned during the show...Matt Navarra tweets about the Super Follows rebrand https://twitter.com/MattNavarra/status/1646586302932942866Madalyn shows how to set the price for your subscriber-only Space. Choose carefully, you only get to do this once!https://twitter.com/MadalynSklar/status/1646612457245245444Elon says Twitter won't take a cut of Subscriptions for the first 12 months https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1646564065853194241Subscriptions rolled out to more countrieshttps://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1647339015132299264Elon says he'll host subscriber-only AMAs on Spaces https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1646786451969851392Did captions come back to Spaces? h/t @legion_mj https://twitter.com/legion_mj/status/1647118236700524547 https://twitter.com/legion_mj/status/1647340697014644736Use Instagram's new feature to boost your social audio links h/t @spacesdashboard https://twitter.com/spacesdashboard/status/1648626485408800769https://twitter.com/MadalynSklar/status/1648737338107854848New look for the nav bar on Clubhouse https://twitter.com/isajorsergio/status/1646615279596609536Spotify announces broadcast to podcast https://twitter.com/MattNavarra/status/1646488380522348546Suze's Stop.Rewind.Play. Substack - Subscribe here to get it in your inbox each week!Last week we spoke about whether 3.3million people really tuned in to hear Elon speak on Spaces. Check out that episode hereAll Things Audio with Madalyn and Suze is recorded LIVE on Twitter Spaces. Madalyn Sklar and Suze Cooper host All Things Audio on Twitter Spaces every Wednesday at 3pm EST / 8pm BST. After the podcast is recorded we open the mic and speak to people in the Space about the week's hot topics. Join us Wednesdays on Twitter Spaces to be part of the conversation. Follow @BigTentSocial and @MadalynSklar and follow the hashtag #AllThingsAudio.

Before the major social platforms launch a new product, they'll often run small experiments within a subset of their users to test it out. More often than not, the first person to spot these new products is a guy named Matt Navarra, and his mini scoops have been cited in thousands of news articles over the years.   Matt got his career start running the digital communications for the UK government and then later became the director of social media for The Next Web. In 2018, he struck off his own and launched his own marketing consultancy.   It was that same year that he began writing Geekout, a weekly newsletter that curates emerging news and information around the marketing industry. Within a few months it amassed thousands of subscribers, and today it drives six figures in revenue, mostly through sponsorships.   In my interview with Matt, we talked about where he gets his product scoops, his audience growth strategies, and how he built a six figure newsletter business as basically a side hustle.  

We recently reached out to some of our amazing marketing friends to ask them one simple question 'what marketing strategy do you think people should prioritise in 2023?' and in this episode, you'll hear their answers.If something one of our guests had an impact on you, we know they'd love to hear from you. Drop them a DM to let them know; their handles are below.Big thanks to Keenya Kelly, Matt Navarra, Camilla Richardson, Jerry Potter, Dan & Lloyd, Andy Lambert, Andrew & Pete, Rob & Kennedy, Shana Lynn and Britney Crosson for sharing their knowledge and expertise in this episode.Let us know which one of these fantastic strategies you will focus on in 2023?If this episode has resonated or inspired you, take a screenshot of the episode, post it to your Instagram stories and tag us @thetwolauras!We would love to continue the conversation with you, so come and chat with us in the Social Media Managers Hub, our free community on Facebook or drop us a DM on your preferred platform by searching for @thetwolauras.IS THE INNER HUB® FOR YOU?Yes, if you are a freelance marketer! The Inner Hub® is our monthly membership for freelance social media marketers, and we'd love to welcome you inside. In the membership, you'll get access to training, support and resources to help you grow your business. The doors only open a couple of times a year, and as a podcast listener, you can get an exclusive invitation by joining our waiting list here.Meet our guests:Keenya Kelly - https://keenyakelly.com/Matt Navarra - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattnavarra/Camilla Richardson - https://www.instagram.com/pinkstormsocial/Jerry Potter - https://www.instagram.com/mrjerrypotter/Andy Lambert - https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyrlambert/Andrew & Pete - https://www.instagram.com/andrewandpete/Rob & Kennedy - https://www.instagram.com/robandkennedy/Britney Crosson - https://www.instagram.com/britneycrosson/Shana Lynn - https://www.instagram.com/shanaspeaks/Dan & Lloyd Knowlton - https://www.instagram.com/danknowlton1/ and https://www.instagram.com/lloydknowlton/To access this podcast with captions and a transcript, please click here or go to podcast.thetwolauras.com

For our latest season of the Media Voices Podcast, kindly sponsored by Poool, we'll be publishing ten episodes exploring the biggest trends of 2022 and how they affect publishers; from podcasts and newsletters to advertising, subscriptions, emerging technology and more. Our eighth episode looks at the major social media platforms, and how their relationship with publishers has fared after yet another tumultuous year. The story which has dominated much of the latter half of the year has been Musk's botched takeover of Twitter. Following months of will-he-won't-he, the billionaire finally completed the $44 billion purchase of the platform in late October. Since then, he has unleashed an unprecedented amount of chaos at Twitter HQ, from mass layoffs to badly thought-through verification plans. Publishers who are reliant on Twitter - or other products like their newsletter platform Revue - are now having to face the very real prospect of there being no Twitter left by the end of 2022. Twitter aren't the only ones to be struggling with layoffs and mismanagement this year. Meta - the umbrella company for Facebook and Instagram - suffered the biggest one-day loss in history for a US company in February, wiping $230 billion off the value of the company. In a number of firsts, Facebook reported a drop in daily user numbers, and their first-ever drop in revenue in July. By the end of October, Meta's shares had tumbled 24% to their lowest level in nearly four years following a 'train wreck' earnings report. Its bet that the metaverse will be the future is proving costly; Meta lost $9.4 billion on its metaverse unit Reality Labs, and expects to have significantly wider operating losses next year. Meta's rocky relationship with publishers is categorically over. As well as ending support for Instant Articles and pulling its new newsletter platform Bulletin, the company began telling news partners in the US that they no longer had plans to pay publishers for their content to run on the News Tab. Legislation looks unlikely to force any further movement on this. In response to Canada saying it would introduce an Australia-style bill to force payments to publishers, Facebook said it would simply block news content on the platform. But as some platforms fall, others rise to take their place. TikTok has cemented its spot as the biggest platform for young people, and is expected to reach 1.8 billion users by the end of 2022. But it has yet to make any serious attempts to grapple with misinformation or data concerns that are frequently raised. Nonetheless, a growing number of publishers are exploring the platform as a way to connect with younger audiences. This week we're joined by social media consultant and industry analyst Matt Navarra. Matt has over 15 years' experience in the industry, and also has first-hand knowledge of the publisher perspective, having been Director of Social Media for The Next Web. He runs the Geekout group and newsletter for social media professionals. This topic will be one of the chapters we explore in detail as part of our Media Moments 2022 report, launching on November 30th. Find out more and pre-register here to receive the report. This season of Media Voices is sponsored by Poool, the Membership and Subscription Suite used by over 120 publishers from around the world. The team behind Poool are industry experts who have put everything they know into the product, ready to respond to your ‘how' of launching & developing a reader revenue strategy. poool.tech | @PooolTech

European shares and US stocks are drifting ahead of the Federal Reserve interest rate decision. The US central bank is expected to hike its benchmark rate by another three-quarters of a percent, pushing it up to 4%. We talked to Daleep Singh, chief global economist at PGIM Fixed Income, about market expectations. We also looked at the weakness of Nigeria's currency, the naira. It's been blamed on the central bank's plan to redesign its bank notes, but is there more to it than that? And we spoke to Matt Navarra, a social media consultant. He talked about Elon Musk's plans to make money from Twitter's famous blue ticks. (Picture: Statue of George Washington Credit: Getty Images)

For online influencers getting verification - a blue tick next to their social media account name - is the ultimate prize. It brings credibility and elevates their status online. Presenter David Harper investigates how accounts can become 'verified', what it means, and if you make your money through online platform, how much is it actually worth? David speaks to Matt Navarra, a social media consultant and industry analyst. Matt has worked for Meta and Google amongst others and says he asked how to get a blue tick dozens of times each week. He explains why verification is useful to brands and users. Entrepreneur Jacques Bastien lives in New York, he works with different brands and companies, and explains why verification is so important for his clients, making them seem more trustworthy. He says the blue tick has a financial benefit which is hard to quantify, but is there. And the BBC's China media analyst Kerry Allen explains the different approach by Sina Weibo, where accounts are checked and ‘verified' to a certain degree when an account is created. She explains the different ‘V' system that accounts have depending on who owns the account. Presented and produced by David Harper. (Image: Social media influencer. Credit: Getty)

In this week's episode: Lauren's in New York. Again. Did she just miss Josh?TikTok's “Creative Center” has Josh gushing about the front-facing feature interface…A “must listen to” interview with Jeremy Lewis, Senior Director, NFT Acquisition at Crypto.com and co-host of the Podcast Wild ‘Til 9. Gives us the 101 on all things NFT, Cryptocurrency and building communities. When is it a good time to get into the Web3 space? Jeremy's answer may not be what you expect! Mind. Blown!Sheryl Sandberg leaves Facebook/Meta and, of course, Lauren has some serious thoughts about it…surprisingly, Josh disagrees!As always, catch a new episode every Friday on your favorite podcasting site. Please leave a comment and visit our website www.creatorupload.com – subscribe and send us a message. We love to hear from you!  Please visit Spri.ng's Mint-On-Demand yes, one of our AWESOME sponsors! Jellysmack is promoting its amazing Creator Program so please be sure to check it out.  

Épisode 716 : Youpi c'est lundi et on vous fait un débrief des dernières actus social media ! Au menu, TikTok qui lance ses stories, Instagram qui fait du ménage et teste les abonnements payants, Linkedin qui se met aux newsletters et Twitter chez qui l'humour ne paye plus !LinkedIn lancer ses newslettersLa Newsletter c'est toujours aussi cool et c'est encore aujourd'hui un incontournable pour diffuser son acte et engager en BtoB notamment.On l'a appris Vendredi, Linkedin va désormais intégrer un outil de création de newsletter à destination de ses pages de marques.Il y a quelques mois, l'outil avait été testé sur des comptes créateurs et se déploie désormais pour les entreprise ayant plus de 500 abonnés.Si Linkedin étend cette fonctionnalité, c'est qu'elle a été approuvée en Test et notamment par Zoom qui a fait partie du programme Pilote et dont la newsletter compte aujourd'hui près de 70k abonnés.Les Newsletters de marques devront apparaître dans la section à la une dans les profils Linkedin.Pour rappel, l'an dernier Twitter a intégré Revue, un outil de Newsletter et Meta a racheté Bulletin !sourceInstagram décide de faire le ménage… Mais de façon automatisée.Instagram a annoncé le déploiement imminent d'un nouvel ensemble de fonctionnalités pour réduire automatiquement la portée de certains posts et stories.On parle notamment des posts et stories propageant des fausses informationsDans son communiqué Instagram explique que jusqu'à présent, ces contenus devaient être identifiés par leurs équipes de modérateurs ou leurs auteurs devaient avoir déjà été sanctionné. Ils continuaient à être affiché mais par contre ils étaient poussés très loin en bas du feed.—En gros il fallait qu'un post ou une story soit signalé par plusieurs personnes pour que sa porte soit limitée.Désormais il sera question de limitation proactive et automatique.Ce sera le cas pour les fake news mais aussi les contenus contenant des incitations à la haine, à l'intimidation et à la violence.—Comment Instagram va-t-il détecter automatiquement ces contenus ?Avec le machine learning. L'automatisation. L'IA va comparer les textes en description et dans les visuels des posts et stories avec les contenus déjà sanctionnés par Instagram. Si il y a trop de similitude il y aura sanction.Instagram explique aussi que si ses systèmes prédisent qu'un utilisateur individuel est susceptible de signaler une publication, en fonction de ses antécédents de signalement de contenu, il affichera la publication problématique le plus bas possible dans son flux personnel.En gros c'est du shadow ban automatisé. Je peux continuer à poster mais ma portée est extrêmement limitée.Good news ? A voir à l'usage… Mais comme tout système 100% automatisé il est fort possible qu'il y ait de la casse fortuite.—Instagram dans la tourmente se devait de réagir. Instagram est également sous pression pour améliorer ses efforts pour protéger les jeunes utilisateurs contre l'intimidation et les abus, après que la fuite de Facebook Files l'année dernière a suggéré que la société mère Meta avait ignoré les recherches qui ont montré qu'Instagram peut avoir des effets néfastes sur la santé mentale des adolescents.Instagram lance la phase de tests pour ses abonnements payantsC'est la news « indignation générale » qui a tourné ces derniers jours : Instagram va devenir Payant .Pas de panique, pour le moment Instagram lance seulement une phase de test pour des abonnements payants sur 10 créateurs.Ces créateurs ont la possibilité de fixer un prix mensuel pour accéder à leur contenu et de débloquer le bouton « Subscribe » sur leur profil. Les abonnements pourraient aller de 0,99 $ à 99,99 $ et permettraient aux abonnés d'accéder à plusieurs fonctionnalités :Des lives session privées : réservés uniquement aux abonnements payants,Des Stories réservées aux abonnés : au contenu exclusif et réservés à leurs top abonnés.Des Badges d'abonnés : pour iidentifier les abonnés payants grâce à un badge qui apparaîtrait à côté de leurs pseudos dans les commentaires et les messages.Comme l'a dit Adam dans l'un de ces Tweets légendaires  
« Les créateurs font ça pour pour en vivre, et il est important qu'ils puissent accéder à des revenus prévisibles. Les abonnements sont l'un des meilleurs moyens d'avoir des revenus qui ne dépendent pas de l'audience qui varie d'une publication à une autre ».Ça ressemble fortement aux Super Follows De Twitter :)sourceL'humour ne paie plus sur TwitterTwitter vient de sortir les résultats de son enquête annuelle.Ca s'appelle RealTalk et propose une chaque année un état des lieux du rapport entre marques et communautés sur la plateforme.Le rapport est passionnant et offre quelques data surprenantes.On y apprend par exemple que l'humour chez les marques ne paie plus.Plus de la moitié des utilisateurs de Twitter estiment que l'utilisation excessive de l'humour sur le réseau par les marques est ringarde. Les entreprises qui se positionnent comme « drôles » et « ludiques » ont moins d'attrait que par le passé. Parallèlement à ce rapport, je suis tombé sur un article très sérieux de Vice.com qui explique que les Gifs animés sont devenus un artefact du Web d'avant Je vous la fais courte. Si tu utilises un Gif animé de réaction sous un tweet tu as au moins 33 ans. Alors sans doute que les GIF ont perdu de leu cool mais ils ont paradoxalement gagné en popularité. GIPHY a signalé que l' utilisation des GIF avait augmenté de 33 % en 2021. Rappelons aussi que le GIF a déjà eu plusieurs vie. Le GIF a été inventé en 1987 et le format est déjà tombé en disgrâce plusieurs fois avant de faire systématiquement son come back.Le GIF est immortel. Les stories TikTok arrivent bientôt et seront intégrées au feed « Pour toi »En Août, TikTok annonçait lancer les tests pour créer des stories et ajouter un nouveau format à son panel.Initialement ces stories devaient trouver une place à part dans l'application comme c'est le cas sur Instagram ou Facebook mais finalement elles devraient être intégrées directement à la For You Page. Pour rappel c'est l'équivalent du feed sur Instagram et c'est là où l'algorithme fait sa magie.Au vu des premières captures dénichées pas Matt Navarra les stories seront identifiables grâce à un bandeau de couleur à la manière des Live TikTok.Cette annonce, ce n'est pas juste une application qui sort sa fonction stories, c'est surtout la première fois que le format stories va être intégré directement au feed global. Plus de limite entre les formats !C'es que tu tu présentais pour 2022 sur Instagram qui a déjà entamé le moove et là TikTok met le pied dans la mare !source. . .Le Super Daily est le podcast quotidien sur les réseaux sociaux. Il est fabriqué avec une pluie d'amour par les équipes de Supernatifs.Nous sommes une agence social media basée à Lyon : https://supernatifs.com/. Nous aidons les entreprises à créer des relations durables et rentables avec leurs audiences. Nous inventons, produisons et diffusons des contenus qui engagent vos collaborateurs, vos prospects et vos consommateurs.

Creator Studio, utilizado por muchos marketers se prepara actualizarse con nuevas novedades, según pudo acceder el Twittero experto en redes sociales Matt Navarra. Quien publico capturas en donde se puede visualizar como la próxima actualización de Facebook creator studio traerá la posibilidad de visualizar los hashtags relacionados con tu target que se encuentran en tendencia en las últimas 24 hs. Además, también vas a poder ver los videos en tendencia de Facebook e Instagram. En las imágenes se puede apreciar que el listado de videos y hashtags que se mostraran será largo, ya que se logra visualizar un botón que dice "ver más". Como dato final y no menos importante, se podrá filtrar por contenido en tendencia por región, tipo de contenido, categoría de página, etc. ✅ Síguenos en Instagram: https://cutt.ly/Hknqzpu ✅ Síguenos en TikTok: https://cutt.ly/2hENxbM ✅ Síguenos en Facebook: https://cutt.ly/bknqWvp ✅ Síguenos en LinkedIn: https://cutt.ly/hknqItS ✅ Visita Nuestro Sitio Web: www.jjlbro.info --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jjlbro/support

Katie Carroll heads up LinkedIn News for North America and the UK. In a world where social media is rife with misinformation and trashy stories that waste your time, LinkedIn curates and packages news to help the platform's professional audience get the information they need to help them do their jobs better. Matt Navarra and Martin SFP Bryant spoke to Katie about LinkedIn's approach to news, the challenges it faces, and how users can get more out of the platform. Follow Matt and Martin on Twitter: @MattNavarra and @MartinSFP Join the Social Media Geekout Facebook Group and subscribe to Geekout's newsletters: Geekout - social media news and analysis Tech Revolution - what today's tech news means for the future Diary of a Social Media Manager - industry news and gossip for social media managers --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/support

Matt Navarra and Martin SFP Bryant talk through the week's social media news as they explore the latest edition of their Geekout newsletter. This week: Facebook's apparent pivot to privacy, Snap losing creators as its payouts decrease, the seemingly endless battle against racist abuse online, and lots, lots more. Follow along with this week's newsletter: https://www.getrevue.co/profile/geekout/issues/gen-z-says-we-re-using-this-emoji-wrong-715061See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Geekout with Matt Navarra is back! This week we chat with Will Cathcart, head of WhatsApp. We discuss WhatsApp's battle to save end-to-end encryption from governments around the world, the growth of messaging as a business tool, and ask lots of geeky questions about WhatsApp's features and plans. This season, our interviews are recorded live on Twitter Spaces. The next live interview will be with Shimona Mehta, Shopify's managing director for EMEA. If you want to listen live at 11.30am on Wednesday 21 July 2021, you can set a reminder on Twitter here. Follow Matt and Martin on Twitter: @MattNavarra and @MartinSFP Join the Social Media Geekout Facebook Group and subscribe to Geekout's newsletters: Geekout - social media news and analysis Tech Revolution - what today's tech news means for the future Diary of a Social Media Manager - industry news and gossip for social media managers --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/support

Matt Navarra and Martin SFP Bryant talk through the week's social media news as they explore the latest edition of their Geekout newsletter. This week: RIP fleets, Facebook's problem with admitting it has a problem, tackling abuse of sportspeople on social media and lots more. Follow along with this week's newsletter: https://www.getrevue.co/profile/geekout/issues/please-don-t-do-this-twitter-685922Hosts:Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra)Martin SFP Bryant (@MartinSFP)See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Matt Navarra and Martin SFP Bryant talk through the week's social media news as they explore the latest edition of their Geekout newsletter. This week: Trump's lawsuit: all heat and no light?, trouble a the top of Facebook, the seemingly endless uses of Tiktok... and a lot more. Follow along with this week's newsletter: https://www.getrevue.co/profile/geekout/issues/this-twitter-feature-could-save-your-job-678199Hosts:Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra)Martin SFP Bryant (@MartinSFP)See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Si, Facebook copia los hilos de Twitter Los comentarios son una parte de Internet ya que son el fruto de la interacción de los usuarios con la web. Pero esto es el caso de las webs tradicionales, ya que donde se propaga más este contenido es en las redes sociales. Esto se ve a la perfección en Twitter, que es la más indicada para colgar casi cualquier mensaje que quieras compartir con el mundo. Si quieres algo más concreto, lo mejor es abrir un hilo para condensar todas las respuestas en un mismo sitio. Hasta ahora esta característica era exclusiva de la app de pajarito pero puede que pronto la veamos en otras como es el caso de Facebook. Si, resulta que la compañía de Menlo Park está desarrollando una función muy similar a estos hilos de los que te hablamos. En esencia, y según las capturas que comparte Matt Navarra en su Twitter, se puede ver el estilo con el que Facebook tendrá su nueva función, la cual es muy similar a la aplicación de origen. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/carlos-roberto-gutierrez/message

Geekout with Matt Navarra is back, and this time... we're doing it live. Yes, we're returning to grill more well-known personalities? from the world of social media. This time the special guests we've got lined up include senior figures from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, the BBC, and more. And we'll be streaming live on Twitter Spaces, so you can tune in as the interviews happen. Don't worry if you miss the live broadcast, we'll be right here in your favourite podcast player to listen back later, too. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/support

Matt Navarra and Martin SFP Bryant talk through the week's social media news as they explore the latest edition of their Geekout newsletter. This week: Twitter looks to help the abused take control, Facebook puts ads in VR, should scraping LinkedIn profiles be allowed... and a lot more. Follow along with this week's newsletter: https://www.getrevue.co/profile/geekout/issues/the-secrets-of-a-social-media-manager-revealed-650861Hosts:Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra)Martin SFP Bryant (@MartinSFP)See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Matt Navarra and Martin SFP Bryant talk through the week's social media news as they dissect the latest edition of their Geekout newsletter. This week: Instagram pays crreators, Biden gives TikTok a fresh headache, Facebook works on a strange smartwatch... and a lot more. Follow along with this week's newsletter: https://www.getrevue.co/profile/geekout/issues/you-don-t-need-this-weird-new-feature-643357Hosts:Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra)Martin SFP Bryant (@MartinSFP)See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Matt Navarra and Martin SFP Bryant talk through the week's social media news as they dissect the latest edition of their Geekout newsletter. This week: Twitter Blue is a work in progress, Facebook could give politicians less of an easy ride, what does TikTok want with Americans' biometric data... and plenty more besides. Follow along with this week's newsletter: https://www.getrevue.co/profile/geekout/issues/pray-for-me-634985Hosts:Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra)Martin SFP Bryant (@MartinSFP)See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Matt Navarra and Martin SFP Bryant talk through the week's social media news as they dissect the latest edition of their Geekout newsletter. This week: Poparazzi hype (and data concerns), the sky clears around Twitter Blue, Likes become optional on Instagram... and plenty more besides.Hosts:Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra)Martin SFP Bryant (@MartinSFP)See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Matt Navarra and Martin SFP Bryant talk through the week's social media news as they dissect the latest edition of their Geekout newsletter. This week: Twitter verification opens up, Snap is quietly one of the most interesting social companies, and what Parler's return to the App Store says about how we can experience the same social space in different ways depending on where we're standing. Oh, and lots more.Hosts:Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra)Martin SFP Bryant (@MartinSFP)See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Topics Discussed:A long list of impressive jobsBoris and Patrick are viciousAndy Grignon and the story of FuckchopBlursday, the fortyteenth of MaprilayCardiff sucksDan is avoiding the newsDon't do anything, Don't see anyone, and wear a mask5 dishes, rather than 2Matt used to be a teacherCooking with CoronaQ-anon CocoaA deeper respect for educatorsJack's beardDealing with Trump(?)Twitter's terms of serviceFreedom of Speech vs. Freedom of ReachFuck the InternetBad ActorsYour Internet Drivers LicenseNo tears in your laughterWhatsapp screws the poochFacebook is the least trusted brand in the world(If) Matt is head of comms at WhatsappDan's bad british accentMatt breaks down the UK governement's COVID commsBrexit: Matt and Dan are going to write a bookPandemic: How has social media changed?Clubhouse - Dan is a VIP member, and will never pay a dime for itAny major brands jumping on the audio trend? Dan needs a jobYour message aimed at a highly targeted audience. Let's talk. dan@selected.sesamers.comThe Social Media GeekoutLurking22.5k people in the groupWhat happened to the Geekout Podcast?Friday Afternoon ClubhouseAre we post Podcast?This conversation brought to you by ... Brewdog. Brewdog, when you want to have a quality brew from ScotlandSocial Media Manager - trained professional or intern?Over 30? Can I still be the social media manager?Purveyors of coolSocial Media Managers, PR? Support? Photographer? Videographer?Influencers. Ugh.Paid Guerilla Marketing?What do you do?Discord. Über geek!Matt's newsletterMatt is going to get very drunkSpread a little SunshineWhere to Find Us:Find Matt at:EmailTwitterLinkedinNewsletterPretty Much everywhere at @MattNavarraFind Dan at:Linktr.ee

Review us on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/do-video-podcast/id1458692309 This one is a fun, one folk! To celebrate "Opposite Day," I thought we could try the current "Wrong Answers Only" trend occurring on Twitter and LinkedIn. Sit back and enjoy my added sound effects, the fun lies followed by a breakdown of the right way to do it. In this episode, we cover a range of un-truths about password protection, social media posts, hashtags, non-existent links, and much more. So why not join me today :D Mentioned Videos & Episodes:

Hey, good afternoon from Engadget! It's Thursday, January 21st. I'm Kyle Sauerhoefer and here's what's happening in the world of technology. TikTok has started a new feature that makes it easier for some of its most popular creators to host Q&A sessions with their fans. The feature was first spotted by social media consultant Matt Navarra, who shared images of it to their Twitter account.

LG se plantea abandonar el mercado de los móviles: su CEO está harto de perder dinero constantemente "Es el momento de tomar decisiones en frío", comentó el CEO de LG, Kown Bong-seok, en una entrevista en The Korea Herald. La empresa lleva seis años perdiendo dinero con su división de smartphones, y parece que sus responsables se plantean el adiós a este negocio. El CEO habló de la feroz competencia que existe en este mercado, e incluso hizo comentarios que plantean una "venta, un abandono o una reducción del negocio de los smartphones". La cuota de mercado de LG en este mercado no parece aumentar y esos dispositivos de nicho como el LG Velvet o LG Wing no ayudan a que esa presencia se vea reforzada. El CEO de LG ya comenzó a plantear un futuro distinto para su división en diciembre de 2020. La empresa delegaría la producción de sus móviles de gama de entrada y gama media a terceras partes y su división interna dedicaría todos sus esfuerzos a dispositivos de gama alta. Las decisiones que LG ha tomado para reimpulsar esta división no están funcionando de momento, y la difícil competencia con Samsung en Corea del Sur y con los fabricantes chinos parece estar siendo demasiado para una empresa que, desde luego, siempre ha intentado cosas nuevas. La apuesta de Spotify por los podcasts no acaba de cuajar según los analistas de Citi Compraron Gimlet Media, compraron Anchor y se gastaron más de 100 millones de dólares en fichar al Messi de los podcasts, Joe Rogan. En Spotify tenían claro que este formato era su gran apuesta de futuro, pero la inversión no parece estar dando los resultados esperados. Es lo que al menos apuntan analistas de Citi, que en una nota a sus inversores avisaban de que todas esas inversiones "no muestran beneficios materiales", cambiando la recomendación para estas acciones, que antes estaba en neutral y ahora está en "vender". La nueva función de preguntas y respuestas de TikTok facilita que los creadores respondan a los fanáticos TikTok ha iniciado una nueva función que facilita a algunos de sus creadores más populares organizar sesiones de preguntas y respuestas con sus fans. La función fue descubierta por primera vez por el consultor de redes sociales Matt Navarra, quien compartió imágenes de la misma en su cuenta de Twitter. TikTok le dijo a TechCrunch que las cuentas públicas de creadores con más de 10,000 seguidores pueden optar por probar la función a través del menú de configuración de la aplicación. Una vez que lo hagan, sus seguidores verán dos nuevos íconos que les permitirán enviar preguntas a través de su página de perfil y la sección de comentarios de los videos que publican. A su vez, los creadores pueden responder con video o texto. La función simplifica el proceso de preguntas y respuestas, ya que pueden ver todas las preguntas que sus fans han enviado a través de una parte de la interfaz de la aplicación. Como beneficio adicional, también funciona con Live, la función de transmisión en vivo de TikTok. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/elgordocircuito/message

Dans cet épisode, je reçois Matthieu Batteur, cofondateur des Petits Culottés, une marque de couche pour bébés made in France et sur abonnement. Pendant cette interview, vous allez apprendre comment Les Petits Culottés ont concquis 15000 abonnés payant en un an et demi, grâce à une utilisation très astucieuse des Facebook Ads (notamment de la géolocalisation). Dans le détail : Sa stratégie globale Facebook Ads qui combine le drive-to-store et la conversion offline Comment il arrive à faire se déplacer plus de 1000 personnes en pharmarcie... avec seulement 100 euros investis en pub (!) L'évolution très rapide de son budget mensuel moyen sur Facebook Les visuels et messages qui fonctionnent bien dans ses campagnes Comment il utilise les articles "comparateurs" pour ouvrir un nouveau marché ...et pleins d'autres choses. Bonne écoute ! ---------- Vous aimez No Pay No Play ? Aidez-moi en allant mettre des ⭐️ et un avis sympa sur iTunes ou Apple Podcasts. Merci d'avance

Just a few short months ago, social networks were coming under intense fire for, among other things, data privacy, toxicity and their negative impact on mental health. The reputations of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter were at an all-time low. But recently, things have changed. Since the middle of March user behaviour has become more positive, and the likes of Facebook and Twitter have become more supportive places to hang out and connect with friends. So could COVID-19 actually provide somewhat of a reboot for social media? A lot could depend on how the social networks are seen to be helping the world over the next few months. It's a golden opportunity to rebuild those ailing reputations. This episode of the Digital Download podcast looks at the evolution of social media both during and after the COVID-19 crisis. It investigates how the networks are handling misinformation, addresses the thorny issue of data privacy, looks at the current wave of innovation, and discusses where social media technology may go in the next couple of years and what brands should look out for in 2021. My special guest on this show is Matt Navarra, well-known social media industry commentator and strategist. Matt was previously Director of Social at TheNextWeb after managing the government's social media channels. What to do Next Subscribe to the podcast to receive new episodes automatically to your mobile or email. And if you enjoyed today's show, please email it to a friend and/or share it on your favourite social media channels. I'd love to hear from you with any comments or thoughts. I read and reply to every single email, tweet or message. And finally, it would also be very awesome and hugely appreciated if you'd be able to take a moment to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, as this helps others discover Digital Download. Thanks for listening!  

In the first of a series of special episodes looking at the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, we look at how the world of digital media and the big social platforms have been affected. We’re joined by Sara Fischer, media reporter at Axios, and John Saroff, CEO of Chartbeat, to explore whether there’s redemption in the air for Facebook, how publishers are innovating during the crisis, whether a media bloodbath is on the horizon, and much more. Subscribe to Sara’s weekly Axios Media Trends newsletter Find out more about Chartbeat’s analysis of how coronavirus is impacting the news. -- Follow Matt and Martin on Twitter: @MattNavarra and @MartinSFP Join the Social Media Geekout Facebook Group Geekout with Matt Navarra is a Big Revolution production. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/support

Ed Couchman is general manager for Snap in the UK, overseeing the business growth of the company there.. Ed joins Matt Navarra and Martin SFP Bryant to talk how Snapchat is evolving, the features people don’t necessarily make the most of, how marketers can make more of the platform, how Snap’s Spectacles might evolve in the future, and more. Meanwhile, Matt and Martin talk over the week’s news, share the latest tests and tools you need to know about, and they ponder the peculiarities of train travel. Geekout with Matt Navarra is sponsored by Pinterest. Inspire your audience and grow your company on Pinterest with a free business account. Learn more at business.pinterest.com. News stories: Instagram prototypes letting IGTV creators monetize with ads Facebook Dating launch blocked in Europe UK names its pick for social media ‘harms’ watchdog The show is taking a break after this episode, but worry not —we’ll be back very soon! -- Follow Matt and Martin on Twitter: @MattNavarra and @MartinSFP Join the Social Media Geekout Facebook Group or discuss the show on Twitter using the hashtag #geekoutquestions. Geekout with Matt Navarra is a Big Revolution production. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/support

James Whatley has been a social media geek so long he practically invented the term. These days he's a strategy partner at Digitas, where he helps brands make the most of digital platforms. James joins Matt Navarra and Martin SFP Bryant to talk about how social media has evolved over the past 15 years, how brands use it well, whether TikTok is a flash in the pan, Facebook’s PR slip-ups, why it’s so hard to respect modern political marketing online, and more, as we kick back for a less formal interview than usual. Meanwhile, Matt and Martin talk over the week’s news, share the latest tests and tools you need to know about, and Martin tries to get Matt into BoJack Horseman. Geekout with Matt Navarra is sponsored by Pinterest. Inspire your audience and grow your company on Pinterest with a free business account. Learn more at business.pinterest.com. News stories: YouTube is a $15 billion-a-year business, Google reveals for the first time Instagram Brings In More Than a Quarter of Facebook Sales Instagram's Search Results For Vaccines Are A Public Health Nightmare Twitter Just Released Its Plan To Deal With Deep Fakes -- Follow Matt and Martin on Twitter: @MattNavarra and @MartinSFP Join the Social Media Geekout Facebook Group or discuss the show on Twitter using the hashtag #geekoutquestions. Geekout with Matt Navarra is a Big Revolution production. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/support

Ask staff at many of the world’s leading newsrooms what software they rely on the most and Chartbeat will be near the top of the list. John Saroff is CEO of Chartbeat, which means he has plenty of insights into the way online publishers — and their audiences —are evolving. John joins Matt Navarra and Martin SFP Bryant to talk about the changing habits of online publishers, the best ways to use social media to drive traffic and engagement to online brands, tips for smaller bloggers and publishers, and the future of Facebook’s often rocky relationship with the news industry. Meanwhile, Matt and Martin talk over the week’s news, share the latest tests and tools you need to know about, and Matt gets grumpy about the Martin’s attempts to sledgehammer Aretha Franklin and Sylvester lyrics into the end of the show. Geekout with Matt Navarra is sponsored by Pinterest. Inspire your audience and grow your company on Pinterest with a free business account. Learn more at business.pinterest.com. News stories: Damian Collins is replaced as chair of the UK Parliament DCMS select committee Vine reboot Byte officially launches Starting the Decade by Giving You More Control Over Your Privacy (and why it doesn’t do what it says it does) In Quick Hits, we mention Instagram Addresses Questions on Algorithm, Comment Pods and Verification [Infographic] -- Follow Matt and Martin on Twitter: @MattNavarra and @MartinSFP Join the Social Media Geekout Facebook Group or discuss the show on Twitter using the hashtag #geekoutquestions. Geekout with Matt Navarra is a Big Revolution production. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/support

Vix Meldrew is a content creator and the founder of Grow & Glow, a community for creators who want to build sustainable storytelling businesses. Vix talks to Matt Navarra and Martin SFP Bryant about how the influencer industry is evolving from simple paid endorsements to more involved forms of storytelling. She discusses making the leap from school teacher to full-time online creator, the challenges of what many people consider a glamorous life, and how she helps others to develop the kind of career she has. How can the influencer industry become more transparent and inclusive? Vix shares her thoughts. She also discusses her relationship with Pinterest, how the platform supports her work, and her tips for how influencers can make the most to fit. Meanwhile, Matt and Martin talk over the week’s news, share the latest tests and tools you need to know about, and Martin extols the virtues of a 4G-enabled iPad when traveling. Geekout with Matt Navarra is sponsored by Pinterest. Inspire your audience and grow your company on Pinterest with a free business account. Learn more at business.pinterest.com. News stories: The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It Facebook backs off plan to plaster ads all over WhatsApp Snap founder says TikTok could dethrone Instagram -- Follow Matt and Martin on Twitter: @MattNavarra and @MartinSFP Join the Social Media Geekout Facebook Group or discuss the show on Twitter using the hashtag #geekoutquestions. Geekout with Matt Navarra is a Big Revolution production. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/support

Vishal Shah is Instagram’s head of product, and he joins us to explain how he’s thinking about the world’s most popular visual sharing app as a new year begins. Vishal talks to Matt Navarra and Martin SFP Bryant about how Instagram decides what to add to — and take away from — the app, how messaging app Threads is developing, why DMs are coming to the web now after so long, an insider’s view on the end of like counts, changes to IGTV, and much more. He answers a bunch of listener’s questions, too. Meanwhile, Matt and Martin talk over the week’s news, share the latest tests and tools you need to know about, and share the joy of wearing makeup for the day after you’ve been on breakfast TV. Geekout with Matt Navarra is sponsored by Pinterest. Inspire your audience and grow your company on Pinterest with a free business account. Learn more at business.pinterest.com. News stories: Twitter’s Jack Dorsey on edit button: ‘We’ll probably never do it’ TikTok explores curated content feed to lure advertisers [paywalled] A Facebook bug exposed anonymous admins of Pages -- Follow Matt and Martin on Twitter: @MattNavarra and @MartinSFP Join the Social Media Geekout Facebook Group or discuss the show on Twitter using the hashtag #geekoutquestions. Geekout with Matt Navarra is a Big Revolution production. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/support

Taylor Lorenz of The New York Times has carved out a niche for herself as the journalist who explains youth culture online to the rest of us. Whether it’s Google Docs as a social network or party invites via Instagram, she understands the trends many of us would never hear of without her stories. Taylor joins Matt Navarra and Martin SFP Bryant to discuss the rise of TikTok, the future of influencers, and why it’s better not to make predictions about the future. Oh, and Martin and Taylor have a heated disagreement over whether it’s Twitter or its users who need to change. Meanwhile, Matt and Martin talk over the week’s news and share the latest tests and tools you need to know about. Geekout with Matt Navarra is sponsored by Pinterest. Inspire your audience and grow your company on Pinterest with a free business account. Learn more at business.pinterest.com. News stories: ByteDance & TikTok have secretly built a deepfakes maker Facebook bans deepfake videos ahead of the 2020 election Snapchat quietly acquired AI Factory, the company behind its new Cameos feature, for $166M Instagram failing to attract older people as user growth set to flatline Some must-read stories by Taylor Lorenz: The Hottest Chat App for Teens Is … Google Docs Instagram Is the New Evite How Twitter Became The Number One Social Network For Nudists How the Pineapple Became the Icon of I.V.F. -- Follow Matt and Martin on Twitter: @MattNavarra and @MartinSFP Join the Social Media Geekout Facebook Group or discuss the show on Twitter using the hashtag #geekoutquestions. Geekout with Matt Navarra is a Big Revolution production. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/support

We’ve talked to Matt Navarra about the latest trends in social media marketing. What should we expect in 2020 and how will our strategies change? Social media is changing at a very fast pace. Every year bring new trends, channels and tactics. Is it better to focus on new trends or stick to the tactics that work best for us? How can social media managers adjust to every change? What’s the future of Facebook and all social media platforms? Is TikTok here to stay? What’s the difference in the strategy between Instagram and Facebook Stories? Matt Navarra, one of the most well-known social media experts is answering all our questions. Enjoy the social media geek out with Tereza Litsa from Lightful and Matt Navarra!

We've talked to Matt Navarra, Social Media Consultant and Expert, to find out more about his work, his favourite social media platforms and all the recent changes in the social media world. Matt Navarra is one of the most well-known social media experts among marketers for his experience and passion for social media. He is also known for all the latest updates and features coming from the big social platforms. We've talked to him about all of these and found out many things we didn't know about him. From his thoughts on having an edit button on Twitter to the changes in the social media landscape, we’ve had a great conversation!

Instagram has announced that it’s extending a trial where it hides likes from other users. You will still see your own like count, but not that of people you follow. It’s being heralded as a positive thing, and all about improving mental health. Instagram bosses say they want to depressurise the experience, and look after young people. But how far do we trust Facebook, Instagram’s parent company, to do the right thing? What will it mean for all those influencers who rely on likes to impress the brands that pay their wages? We speak to the BBC’s Sophia Smith-Galer, fashion influencer Katherine Ormerod, and Matt Navarra, a social media consultant. Presented by Tina Daheley Producers: Katie Gunning and Philly Beaumont Mixed by Nicolas Raufast Editor: John Shields

Chris Messina is the inventor of the hashtag, but he’s been asked about that far too many times for us to bring it up much here. Good thing that he’s a deep thinker about products, platforms, and social engagement, and has lots to say about topics we love on this podcast. Chris joins Matt Navarra and Martin SFP Bryant to discuss whether social media is at an inflexion point, and where it goes next. We also go in deep on Instagram’s motivations behind launching the rather threadbare new app Threads; whether users will ever be asked to pay for Facebook; how to deal with information overload, and lots more. Meanwhile, Matt and Martin talk over the week’s news and share the latest tests and tools you need to know about. Geekout with Matt Navarra is sponsored by Pinterest. Inspire your audience and grow your company on Pinterest with a free business account. Learn more at business.pinterest.com. This is the end of season one, but we’ll be back soon! News stories: Instagram introduces Threads, a new messaging app for your close friends Google Weighs Acquisition of Rival to Video App TikTok TikTok explains its ban on political advertising Horny People, You’re Free: Instagram’s Following Tab Is Gone -- Follow Matt and Martin on Twitter: @MattNavarra and @MartinSFP Join the Social Media Geekout Facebook Group or discuss the show on Twitter using the hashtag #geekoutquestions. Geekout with Matt Navarra is a Big Revolution production. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/support

Colleen Stauffer is Pinterest's Director of Global Business Marketing. She joins Matt Navarra and Martin SFP Bryant to discuss this often misunderstood platform, how it can help digital marketers and social media managers, and she shares her views on the future of digital marketing. We dig into the increasingly visual way we all communicate, what social media platforms can learn from Pinterest when it comes to tackling misinformation, how AR could fit into Pinterest's future, and how Pinterest is evolving as a platform. Meanwhile, Matt and Martin talk over the week’s news and share the latest tests and tools you need to know about. Geekout with Matt Navarra is sponsored by Pinterest. Inspire your audience and grow your company on Pinterest with a free business account. Learn more at business.pinterest.com. News stories (Facebook special!): With Facebook’s Coming News Tab, Only Some Will Get Paid Current and former Facebook execs say reports WhatsApp will hand encrypted messages to UK police are wrong In two hours of leaked audio, Mark Zuckerberg rallies Facebook employees against critics, competitors, and the US government -- Follow Matt and Martin on Twitter: @MattNavarra and @MartinSFP Join the Social Media Geekout Facebook Group or discuss the show on Twitter using the hashtag #geekoutquestions. Geekout with Matt Navarra is a Big Revolution production. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/support

Andrew 'Boz' Bosworth is Facebook's VP responsible for VR and AR. He joins Matt Navarra and Martin 'SFP' Bryant moments after stepping off the stage at Oculus Connect 6, Facebook's latest VR developer conference. He talks us through some of the biggest news from the event and we explore how important virtual worlds could become to our lives in the future. Is Facebook Horizon a second chance for Second Life? How will Oculus Business bring VR to the office? Can Facebook convince the public to put Portal cameras in their living rooms? How do the forthcoming AR glasses fit into Facebook's plans, and why was Boz's doctor using Google Glass while treating him recently? And is Facebook the right company to be doing all of this VR and AR stuff anyway? Meanwhile, Matt and Martin talk over the week’s news and share the latest tests and tools you need to know about. Geekout with Matt Navarra is sponsored by Pinterest. Inspire your audience and grow your company on Pinterest with a free business account. Learn more at business.pinterest.com. You can learn more about Pinterest Board Collaboration here. News stories: YouTube Rolls Back Verification Changes, Says Verified Creators Can Keep Their Badge Snap's 'Project Voldemort' dossier detailed Facebook's copycat moves Facebook to shut down its group stories feature next week Facebook promises not to stop politicians’ lies & hate -- Follow Matt and Martin on Twitter: @MattNavarra and @MartinSFP Join the Social Media Geekout Facebook Group or discuss the show on Twitter using the hashtag #geekoutquestions. Geekout with Matt Navarra is a Big Revolution production. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/support

Damian Collins has social media regulation in his sights, and as chair of UK Parliament's DCMS select committee, he's got strong opinions on how to whip the tech companies into shape. Here he joins Matt Navarra and Martin SFP Bryant to explain why tech companies seem to particularly fear scrutiny from UK politicians, whether we need international rules to govern big tech, what he thinks about Netflix's The Great Hack (in which he appeared)... and just what is Mark Zuckerberg's deal, anyway? It's a wide ranging and fascinating chat with a man leading the charge toward greater regulation of the apps we all use. And we talk over the week’s news and share the latest tests and tools you need to know about. Geekout with Matt Navarra is sponsored by Pinterest. Inspire your audience and grow your company on Pinterest with a free business account. Learn more at business.pinterest.com. News stories: Facebook working on smart glasses with Ray-Ban, code-named ‘Orion’ Establishing Structure and Governance for an Independent Oversight Board Nextdoor’s new Kindness Reminder wants to stop neighbors from being so mean Facebook introduces Portal TV, a video chat camera accessory for your television -- Follow Matt and Martin on Twitter: @MattNavarra and @MartinSFP Join the Social Media Geekout Facebook Group or discuss the show on Twitter using the hashtag #geekoutquestions. Geekout with Matt Navarra is a Big Revolution production. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/support

CNN media reporter Kerry Flynn joins Matt Navarra and Martin SFP Bryant to discuss the future of social media. Is there room for new platforms to break through? Is Facebook doomed to be associated with data misuse forever? What will tech look like in 10 years time? And is TikTok just a fad? We also get nostalgic over FriendFeed and Yo, and find out who Kerry would rather have over for dinner: Jack Dorsey, Mark Zuckerberg, or Evan Spiegel. And we talk over the week’s news and share the latest tests and tools you need to know about. Geekout with Matt Navarra is sponsored by Pinterest. Inspire your audience and grow your company on Pinterest with a free business account. Learn more at business.pinterest.com. News stories: Facebook Dating launches in the US, adds Instagram integration Apple will live stream its iPhone 11 event on YouTube for the first time Facebook is under investigation by state attorneys general for antitrust violations -- Follow Matt and Martin on Twitter: @MattNavarra and @MartinSFP Join the Social Media Geekout Facebook Group or discuss the show on Twitter using the hashtag #geekoutquestions. Geekout with Matt Navarra is a Big Revolution production. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/support

Twitter’s Director, Product Management, Sara Haider chats to hosts Matt Navarra and Martin SFP Bryant. We find out the latest on the much-requested edit button; the state of play with Twitter’s verification program; how product design can aid positive mental health; Martin pitches Sara his idea for a standalone DMs app, and Matt tries his hardest to uncover Twitter’s Konami code (they must have one, right?). Matt and Martin also talk over the week’s news and share the latest tests and tools you need to know about. Geekout with Matt Navarra is sponsored by Pinterest. Inspire your audience and grow your company on Pinterest with a free business account. Learn more at business.pinterest.com. News stories: Now Facebook says it may remove Like counts Viral Deepfake App ZAO Sparks Mass Downloads, Memes and Major Concerns Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s account was hacked Twitter disables tweeting via SMS after CEO gets hacked Apply to use Twitter’s prototype app Twttr here. Follow Matt and Martin on Twitter: @MattNavarra and @MartinSFP Join the Social Media Geekout Facebook Group or discuss the show on Twitter using the hashtag #geekoutquestions. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/support

Introducing Geekout with Matt Navarra. We'll meet the people building your favourite social media apps, opinionated journalists, and even headstrong politicians who are shaping the future of tech. Launching early September, 2019, hosted by Matt Navarra and Martin SFP Bryant. Subscribe now to get each episode delivered your podcast app. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnavarra/support

Digital media consultant Matt Navarra discusses the key social strategy challenges, including new formats, targeting audiences and verification

Social media collaboration and approval software startup Planable has been growing at a rate of 25% month over month, something the company's co-founder attributes to its marketing team structure. This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, Planable co-founder Vlad Calus talks about how he built the company's marketing team from the ground up using a three pronged approach focused on people, processes and tools - and why that approach is key to the companies fast growth. Vlad has written a book on building the marketing team of the future and in this interview, he summarizes in detail how Planable's team is structured; the processes they use on a daily, weekly and quarterly basis; and the software tools they've chosen to implement. This week's episode of The Inbound Success Podcast is brought to you by our sponsor, IMPACT Live,  the most immersive and high energy learning experience for marketers and business leaders. IMPACT Live takes place August 6-7, 2019 in Hartford Connecticut and is headlined by Marcus Sheridan along with special guests including world-renowned Facebook marketing expert Mari Smith and Drift CEO and Co-Founder David Cancel. Inbound Success Podcast listeners can save 10% off the price of tickets with the code "SUCCESS".  Click here to learn more or purchase tickets for IMPACT Live Some highlights from my conversation with Vlad include: Planable is a content collaboration platform for marketing, freelancers, and agencies. For the first two years of the company's history, the marketing team was trying to use growth hacks to achieve its objectives, but quickly realized that was neither sustainable nor scaleable.  When they hired a new marketing director, the team began a process of studying how high performing marketing teams operated, and from that research, decided to focus on content marketing as the core of their strategy going forward. From their, Vlad identified that there were three main pillars of effective and efficient marketing teams - people, process and tools. When it comes to people, Vlad says that marketing teams need to have individuals with clear roles and clear ownership, as well as a defined quarterly marketing plan. The teams processes need to deliver transparency, consistency and alignment. And the tools that the team uses need to be effective. Vlad's team uses Zoom, Slack, Dropbox, InvisionApp, Google Drive, Planable, and Frame. Resources from this episode: Save 10% off the price of tickets to IMPACT Live with promo code "SUCCESS" Visit the Planable website Follow Vlad on Twitter Connect with Vlad on LinkedIn Listen to the podcast to hear Vlad describe, in detail, the approach he used to build Planable's marketing team and how that structure has enabled the company to grow 25% month over month. Transcript Kathleen Booth (Host): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm your host Kathleen Booth, and this week my guest is Vlad Calus, who is the co-founder of Planable. Welcome back, Vlad. Vlad Calus (Guest): Thank you. Thank you Kathleen, and thanks for having me. Vlad and Kathleen hamming it up while recording this episode together . Kathleen: I am particularly appreciative that you joined me, and it is crazy late at night, your time, because you are based over in Europe. Vlad: Yeah, exactly. I'm currently in Bucharest, and in Eastern Europe. Kathleen: Well, I appreciate you staying up and burning the midnight oil to join me for this podcast. For those who are listening, can you talk a little bit about what Planable is, and your background? About Planable and Vlad Calus Vlad: Definitely, yeah. So, Planable is a content collaboration platform for marketing, freelancers, and agencies. Basically it's a mock up of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram, that helps you preview how the content would look like, like 100% pixel content, and then you can simply just ask for feedback or collaborate with any of the stakeholders in the team, including brand managers, or human resources, or legal, or anyone else just to make sure this is the right content that you want to publish on social media. Then you can just simply ask for an approval, and then schedule the content directly to social media. Kathleen: Great. And you personally have a really interesting background. You went through Techstars, you were on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, you're a very active startup mentor. Can you talk a little bit about your background and what led you to co-founding Planable? Vlad: Yeah, I would love to. So, I would say that at the age of 16, I started participating in a lot of non-profit organizations and starting my own organizations, just because I was feeling and trying to fix the problems in my own community. Like starting from really small problems and then just trying to get some use time and good time for myself, and learning something from everyone. And then at the age of 19, I found my first or second job, and I went to a startup competition called Startup Week in Moldova, in my home country. And I ended up meeting two of my current co-founders of Planable just by accident. I was just walking around them, looking for a team to join during the competition. And when I just started with Xenia, who is my current co-founder, we start chatting about the idea that we wanted to work on, and I just started talking to them, "Hey, may I join with your team? Would really love to participate. I really don't want to go home. I would really like to make it happen." And then we started, on the second day, we started actually working on this idea and debating it more. We participated with something related to the social media, but it was like an initial concept before making everything happen at Planable. And we ended up understanding that all of us shared the same passion and frustration for social media, and frustration in terms of the problems that marketing agencies and social media managers are fighting with. And couple of hours after that, we just won the competition, and we were invited to a pre-accelerated program in Romania. And we just founded a company then, and everything started there, and just in couple of months after that, we ended up being part of Techstars London, which I really believe changed the way our company work and exists, because it gave us a big round of funding, over 120K, and lots of support. We also started the company, we started monetizing the product and the company then, during the Techstars, and gave us the first support from actual people, like actual customers, and people that we understood that really, really believe in our vision, our company, our product, and everything that we are doing right now. Kathleen: That's great. And I've always been impressed by the businesses that have come out of Techstars, and so it's fun to get to talk to someone whose gone through the program. Now, one of the things that I thought was interesting about the experience you've had is, you started right from the very beginning, you're one of the founders, and you've been growing this company, and a lot of the people I talk to on this podcast, we talk about their marketing techniques and strategies, and how that fuels growth. And when you and I spoke, I thought something so interesting was that you have plenty of marketing techniques and strategies, but one of the things that you consider to have been a major contributor to your growth is the way you've structured and grown your marketing team in particular. And so, I wanted to dig into that a little bit more with you, and explore how that has worked, and the results you've gotten. How Planable's Marketing Team Is Structured Vlad: Definitely, yeah. So, changing the way our marketing works, our marketing team works, actually was one of the most important things that happened to this company. Because the product side was always working and ticking, and the product was always developing. We had and we still have a brilliant co-founder and CTO that came up with the product and division, and the way everything works. But we had to compensate this with the marketing and the business, and actually getting the first users and customers to the product. So, the first two years of the company, we were trying really, really hard to do any growth hacks that you could ever read on the internet, and all the Facebook groups, and Slack communities, and Twitter, List, and everything else. I would say that we really tried to bootstrap our way in the most possible way. But then we just understood that nothing is actually working, and nothing is actually scalable. Like really, really scalable that could generate us success in the long term, and that we could actually replicate all of this. So, in I would say April last year, we ended up partnering with a brilliant new employee, who is called Miruna. She's our head of marketing at the moment at Planable, and we just started talking with her about the fact that we need to restructure our marketing team. We need to work on something from the ground up and start making some extreme, extreme changes. And we started this by analyzing the whole industry and understanding what are the biggest issues of marketers, and what are our issues, and starting to understand how can we work on solving this problem from the very beginning. So, right now, marketers are facing enormous challenges when it comes to content marketing, because content marketing was something that we wanted to focus on, completely. This would be the ground zero, the main, main focus of our marketing team. And when we understood that there are couple of main problems, like an enormous amount of wasted time and effort results in productive ... loss of productive hours than creating the content. And lots of PR crisis are being created because there is no clear approval process, there is no feedback, there is no communication. And there are campaign that are launched, that should've been launched exactly because the content was not approved. And then we also started to think more about the content marketing, and how can we actually scale it. So, we ended up thinking about many of the pillars, or many of the parts of content marketing, and how it should be structured. And we ended up creating a system for our own team that we started with couple of colleagues and analyzing this within the team, and then we understood that many big companies actually have a very, very similar structure but we would never actually understood this. This was just the way we were. So, we understood that there are three main parts of ... of an effective and efficient marketing team, and this is the people, the processes and tools. These are the three main pillars that we understood that we have to implement in our team. "There are three main parts of an effective and efficient marketing team - the people, the processes and tools." - Vlad Calus Click here to Tweet this quote Building a Marketing Team: The People Vlad: So, I would say that the first when I was mentioning about the people. People are obviously the essence of any content marketing process. You have to have people in order to deliver everything that you want. And then we understood that in order to have an efficient marketing team, all of us have to have very clear and understood roles in our team. And start working on the main skills and best skills that each of us have, in order to actually succeed. So, we just looked at each other and started to think, "What's all of us do?" Because all of us, we were free marketers back then, and we were like full stack marketers. We were doing everything- Kathleen: Everyone was doing everything? Vlad: Exactly, yeah. Everyone was doing everything, no matter what. We just looked at the task and then was like, "Should I do this? You do this? Okay, let me do this today, and then we can next week ..." This is how we would do it. And then we just understood, we looked at everyone and started discussing this. "Okay, what can I do?" I am not the most, in my case, it was I'm not the most creative person, but I can really deliver. I am an efficient person that can deliver lots of stuff, I can promote our content, I can work on twitching the content exactly the way it is from the technical perspective. And then Miruna, my colleague, was the most creative brain of Planable, because she could really speak the way our brand would speak on social media and digital. This is something she just had this from the very first day, and I was amazed by this. And then we also had the third colleague. She was Luciana, she was the most creative person on the social media. She likes engaging with people on social media. So, we understood that we need to have clear roles. In my case, it was SEO, search engine optimization. I need to tweak all of the content that we are creating, and then I also need to write the content for Planable outside of Planable, like writing guest blogs, and also representing Planable outside the building. Miruna was the one that was creating the content and also doing all the design part, and Luciana was doing the social media and the newsletters. So, we had three main pillars of content marketing, divided by three persons, so we understood that we have clear roles established. This was the first part to create clear roles. And also, the second part was to establish a clear ownership of everything. So, if you, for example, Luciana was doing social media and newsletters. There might be chances when we have to help Luciana, she needs creative ideas or design materials on everything else, but this still means that Luciana has a complete ownership on this. We even made ... and this was the second part, and the third part that in terms of the people, we had to do a clear plan for the next quarter. We are doing 12 weeks iterations on the marketing plans, because we think this is the most efficient. We are not trying to jump on the next six or 12 months, or even three years. We believe that this might be a waste of time, so this is why we try to stick close to three months iterations only. So, just to sum up, this was, for us, having a clear ownership, having clear roles, and have a clear definitive marketing plan for the next three months on all of the marketing objectives that we do. Kathleen: Yeah, we use quarterly planning as well, and I agree with you. You certainly could come up with a plan for a longer time horizon, but so much changes, and I've really found over time that quarterly is the most effective time interval for that kind of thing. Vlad: Yeah, definitely. I also was speaking with lots of teams that they are also using that quarterly, but also six weeks iteration. This is definitely something that you can do. Unfortunately, being a small team such as ours, it's hard to actually feel like you've implemented a lot during the six weeks, so we just give us lots of time during this 12 weeks, like three months that we do quarterly. Kathleen: Yeah. So, that's how you approach the people element of your team- Vlad: Exactly, yeah. Kathleen: Yeah. Vlad: And there is also something that we also related to the people, something that was super, super important for us. We understood that we cannot do everything, so this is why we need to get other stakeholders into the team. Meaning that we started using lots of video and audio production teams, like design and branding, website building, link building, data scrapping, people on the PR side, people on the page marketing, and so on. Because we believe that everyone should do the best that they could, and if you don't have the time, but have the resources, you should definitely use. Because for example, we are also doing people of marketing, this is a video blog, and we just understood that we would waste a lot of time on video production. We can film, or we can create a content, but editing and post producing the content is super, super hard for us. Kathleen: Yeah. Building a Marketing Team: The Processes Vlad: Yeah, so moving on. The second part was about the processes, because in terms of the processes, we wanted to make sure that we don't have only a clear plan, but we can also implement all of this plan and we can deliver everything that we proposed ourselves. Unfortunately, lots of teams are making critical mistakes in terms of this, because they are not having the clear workflow and the clear processes established within the team, and within the whole company. And we understood that we have, and we need three main aspects of this. First, we put transparency at the top of our processes. And we put transparency at the core of our entire workflow, because we believe that transparency was the most important thing, and transparency in terms of what's everyone doing today, this week, this month? What are the main files that we should access, for example, I should have the access to all of the marketing files, and all of the marketing materials, even though I don't actually have a need of them, but I should have them in case I need to be involved in this process. And transparency, because there is, for example, social media or email marketing teams, they have two departments and therefore two ways that they are not even communicating between them at the time that they most need, because we believe that collaboration empowers teams to not only create better content, but also be more efficient, and better at the way content marketing team works. Then the second part was about consistency. We understood that we need clear consistency on everything we do. For example, when I just started content marketing and writing articles, this was one and a half years ago. I was literally staring at the blank Google Docs document for 20 or 30 minutes, and could not came up with any ideas at all. So, because of that, I was just trying to get inspired all around the internet with any ideas that I could, and just writing random keywords, and starting to write something from those keywords, just to get this creative flow going somewhere. And then I tried to make it consistent as I could, so I just had the task in my task management tool that each day I am writing at least one hour a day. No matter what, no matter if this is good, no matter how perfect this is, but I just wanted to write. And then at the end of the week, I was starting to editing all of this content, and putting everything that I could. Because I was trying to throw all the raw idea that I had, and instead of editing and then being depressed because nothing really works, I was just trying to constantly came up, like throw ideas to this digital paper, and make sure that I move and I do something actually. Kathleen: Yeah. It's a great goal to be able to write out an hour a day. I feel like so many people say they're going to do something like that, and then they never follow through, so kudos to you for actually doing it. Vlad: Yeah, because I believe that a lot of marketers, and they really show this when I was speaking with marketers over the past year, a lot of marketers have exactly this struggle of writing content. They think that writing an article of 2000 words, or 3000, or even in my case writing a book of 30 000 words, this is super complicated. But I think about this like a process that you have to complete, and something that you have to deliver if you are consistent, and I believe that writing, especially writing, this is a skill that you empower with consistency. If you write more, you can create more and you write better. Kathleen: Yeah, and we should mention that you are a published author. You did write an entire book called Marketing Teams of the Future, which is sort of what we're talking about here in terms of how you built your team, so this isn't just a couple blog posts that you're getting out. This was an entire book. Vlad: Yeah, exactly. Because I focused the book exactly on this part, how to build your marketing teams by showing all of our examples of the team, and then speaking with some of the best marketing teams out there, from InVisionApp, Digital Crowd, Night Watch, and many more, and trying to understand what are the most efficient teams in the world, and how can we do this better with our help and anyone else. And then the third part of processes was about alignment, like making sure that alignment starts with a clear strategy, and then with consistent daily variables. In our team, these are two parts that we did. The first part is that we have a marketing meeting at 10:00 AM each Monday. There is absolutely no chance that we skip this meeting, unless you are on vacation we give you the full freedom on your vacation. But usually if you're traveling, if you're not in the office, we will connect you with a Skype call or Zoom call, or anything else, and we'll do this meeting at least for 10 or 15 minutes to make sure that everyone is aligned. And then the second part, also something that lots of marketing teams give, I believe is super important to do it one to one's between the marketing managers and between the marketing teams themselves because there are lots of things that people usually want to speak, but we just miss speaking just because maybe this is not the right time, or maybe this is not the right environment. Or this is just not the conversation that you would have at the desk with other colleagues in there. And this is why, if you at least plan one, one to one, at least once a month, or in our case once in two weeks, this will help you make sure that everyone is on the same page. You have everyone is expecting the same thing from you and from the team, and from the deliverables and everything that you do. Kathleen: Yeah. So, you've got your three points under people, you've got three points under process. Let's recap each of those again just so that everybody's following along. Vlad: Definitely, yeah. So, in terms of the people, the three things that we did was about making a clear ownership, what's everyone doing, and then the second part was about establishing clear roles, and clear things that everyone is doing. And then the third part was about creating a marketing plan for the next quarter, because this is what we do at the quarter, and this is something that I would recommend. And in terms of the processes, there were three parts of what we do, and I would suggest implementing in your team as well, this is first of all transparency. Everything has to be transparent across your marketing organization. The second part is consistency. Really embrace consistency from the very beginning. Try to do content marketing each day, try to write an article each day, do social media each day. Write at least one newsletter each day, and you will see that day by day, you will feel improvement in yourself, and your own marketing team as well. And then the third part is about alignment by making sure that everyone is on the same page, and discussing and communicating all of the expectations and the variables clearly within your team. Kathleen: I love it. Thank you for recapping that. And then you had ... so, in addition to people and processes, you had sort of your third overarching category of things. Could you talk a little bit about that? Building a Marketing Team: The Tools Vlad: Yeah, the third part was about the tools, and in terms of the tools, I would say that this is pretty straight forward, but I want to mention first of all that, do not rely on tools because no automation tool can or should replace the creative force of your team. Because when time consuming, repetitive tasks are automated, these billable hours can't be spent on creative work. So, we should work only with the tools that we really understand that value for us, and that really feed for our team. And in my case, in the book I just presented a couple of tools that I can also send you the links after that in email, but in terms of the list that we are currently working with the tools, and something that we would suggest. First of all, this is using Zoom for all of your video calls and everything else. We switched to Zoom. Before that we used Appear.in. I really loved Appear for connecting on the video calls directly for the browser, but that didn't work for us all the time. Sometimes we had issues, sometimes our customers couldn't connect, so we just switched everything to Zoom, and wow. Over the past four months, I never had a bug. Never had an issue. Kathleen: Yeah. Vlad: This product is just working- Kathleen: It's pretty great. And people who are listening can't tell, but we are on a Zoom call right now. That's how I record the podcast, and I probably spend six hours of my day on Zoom, because we're a mostly remote company, and so all of our meetings, all of my conversations are on Zoom. It's fantastic. Vlad: Exactly, yeah. And in terms of the other tools that there are, I would obviously recommend to use Planable for all of your content management creation and social media, and then there is also InVisionApp, for all of the prototyping in terms of images and creative content that you are doing. There is also Frame. I really love this company. If you even open the website that they have, it's a super beautiful website. When you are a creative person, or work in a marketing team, this really fulfills your heart when you see a beautiful website in a team. Kathleen: And what's the URL of that website? Vlad: Frame.io, I think. Yeah, Frame.io. Kathleen: Yeah, I'm pulling it up now so I can look at it while we talk. I love looking at nice websites. Oh, okay. So, for video review and collaboration. Vlad: Exactly. Yeah. Kathleen: Yep. Vlad: This is something, so we are basically describing Planable as Frame IO, but for social media. Kathleen: Got it. Vlad: Because this is something very similar. And if you look at the list that I am presenting right now, you can actually see that all of the platforms are also collaboration, because I really believe that collaboration is the key of any marketing team right now. Kathleen: Yeah, absolutely. Vlad: And then there is obviously the Slack for building a transparent environment that we were speaking about because you can create all of those channels, and anyone can join those channels and you can simply collaborate on everything that you do. Obviously also for assets management, you can use Dropbox, or Google Drive, or anything that fits you. We are personally using Dropbox, we are personally using Google Drive across the company. I am using Dropbox and Apple Cloud for some personal stuff that I am doing right now. And then the last one that I highly recommend almost all the time, this is Airtable. This is spreadsheets on steroids. Anyway, this is the way I am ... the founders describe it, because you can almost do anything in Airtable, that is similar experience to spreadsheets but actually really different. Kathleen: Well, you have a very similar list of tools to me, because we use all of those I think with the exception of Frame. We actually use Wipster, which is really similar, so very similar functionality. But yeah, if I'm not on Zoom, I'm usually on Slack. Vlad: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kathleen: And yeah, and we are using Airtable as well because we had some complex spread sheeting needs that we couldn't solve with Google Sheets and its been great. Vlad: Yeah, exactly. And we use Airtable for almost anything that we do in terms of the list, and the databases in our team. For example, we have a specific list in Airtable for recruiting, we have another sheet for marketing list, like events, or podcasts that we are listening, or events that we want to be part of, or speaking engagements. And lots of other stuff that we do. And Airtable really, really helps us make sure that we are on point with our idea. Even though our marketing plan and ownership plan, and everything that I was saying is also part of Airtable. Kathleen: Yeah. That's great. So, you've outlined really your overarching three kind of pillars, I would say. The people, the processes, and the technology. Talk to me about how that impacted your ability to grow the company, to deliver results through marketing. How Planable's Team Structure Enabled It To Grow Vlad: Yeah, definitely. So, we started implementing all of this processes, and then we obviously did not see any major results from the very first day. But when we started observing some of the patterns that are happening in all of our analytics, so first we started seeing a growth in our traffic. So, it was like the first couple of weeks, it was an incremental traffic. Like 10%, and then 15%, and 20%, and then everything else. And we actually felt like wait a sec, it's growing. It's actually something is happening in here. And when we started understanding where this is coming from, and we ended up analyzing all of the sources, and it's actually from the content that we were creating. And then we started speaking with the people that shared this content on social media, like Facebook, Twitter, and everything else, and we were saying that it's really exceptional content that we are creating, and we really feel like we answered the questions that we proposed from the very beginning of the piece. And this was a clue for us that we are doing something the right way. We are actually creating the right content for the teams, and we understanding for us, this was exactly because we built this processes and workflows in mind, and we were building everything the right way. And when we saw the growth in traffic, we saw the growth in the number of users, and this obviously reflected the number of our revenue. So, and then looking over the past 12 months of the growth from June last year to June this year, we can definitely say that we have month over month growth of between 20 to 30%. I would say that the median number is 23%, but it obviously varies from one month to another month. For example, for our surprise, December was one of the most spectacular months that we've ever had. Kathleen: That is interesting, because I feel like almost every company I know that works in something related to marketing, December is a very slow month because- Vlad: Oh wait, no. Sorry. Sorry about that. This is June. No, this is January. So, January was the most spectacular month, and then December was one of the ... oh my God, one of the most horrible months. Kathleen: I was going to say, that sounds more like every other company... Vlad: Yeah, sorry about that. Yeah. Yeah, this is because we felt ... and in January, we felt like is there anyone looking for a new subscription for their team. Kathleen: Right. We have the same conversation every year. We have usually got tremendous traffic growth in the fourth quarter, and then after the first week in December, it's like it all falls off a cliff. Nobody's working, it seems. Vlad: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I never saw so sad Google analytics on our website like in December, especially the past two weeks. It was just dropping. We had probably minus 60% drop in all of the traffic and then it quickly came up- Kathleen: Which, as long as it comes back is fine. Because if you know it's going to dip every December, you can plan for that. But yeah. Vlad: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And the most funniest thing, I will never understand this, is that people were signing up for new subscription on January 1st. And I was like, "What the hell are you doing in a new subscription?" Kathleen: Right. Vlad: But then we start analyzing, and we understood that their trail had expired, and they had lots of content planned, and they did not want to give up on this, and then we just ended up publishing next. And we had to renew their subscription, which is a good sign, so we can put- Kathleen: That is a good sign. Vlad: Yeah. And we can prepare for more marketing campaigns or ideas at the end of December and beginning- Kathleen: Yeah. What I like about this story is I've always personally had a belief that marketing is a little bit like weight loss, and health and fitness, you know? There's lots of people who kind of think they're going to get this magic solution, this diet that's going to miraculously have them lose all their weight, and it might in the short term. There's all kinds of fad diets that help you lose weight quickly. But does it last? And usually the answer is no. And unfortunately, the real solution in health and fitness slash weight loss is consistency and good old fashioned calories in, calories out, right? And in marketing, I honestly believe it's a lot like that. There are plenty of little fads and shiny objects that you can chase, and they might give you a short term boost, but as you said in the very beginning, those are not scalable things. And with the tech changing so quickly, and algorithms changing so quickly on social and on Google, if you're just chasing the latest greatest fad, you're always ... it's like chasing your tail. You're always going to be chasing something. So, it made me happy to hear that your great results came from consistency and good old fashioned, you know, content marketing. Vlad: I love it. I love your comparison. I was actually thinking yes, this is totally true. I completely agree with that, yeah. Kathleen: Yeah. It's great to see. So, the company is now how old? Vlad: So, we are now ... so, we started the company in February 2016. I would say that we worked two years in order to get the product on the market and actually feel like people see the value of this product. We started monetizing the company after one year and a half, but then it took us two years in total to get to the product market feed when we understood that people actually see the value and we understand, and we are building something valuable for people. Kathleen: Yeah. And in the meantime, you've been seeing this consistent growth and traffic, and leads and sales, and- Vlad: Yeah, exactly. Because we just understood that if something is working, let's try to stick to it. And you can always stick with consistency. Try incremental, super, super small, super, super small steps. But just do this consistently, week over week, month over month, and make sure that you keep up the same pace. Kathleen: I think that you had a lot of great tips, but I think the one for me personally that resonated the most and that I'm going to try to take to heart is blocking off an hour every day to write. Because really, we do live in a world where content is so central to getting found online, it's also so central to how you nurture your leads and convert them. Even once you have customers, content is central to that. Preventing churn, and developing loyalty, so I love that suggestion, and again it goes back to that exercise and eating right analogy. You got to do it every day, you got to stick with it and you will eventually see results. So, that is going to be my resolution. It's not the new year, but I'm going to make a resolution to write for an hour every day. I love that. Vlad: Yeah, definitely. That's a good one. Kathleen's Two Questions Kathleen: Well, before we wrap up, two questions that I always ask all of my guests, I'm curious to hear your take. When it comes to inbound marketing, and content marketing, is there a company or a person that you think is really doing it well right now? Vlad: Yeah, I actually have someone else in mind, but when you just asked the question, I immediately came up with Drift. I really think that oh my God, I'm following these guys over the past years. We are using [Intercom] personally, just because we went with Intercom, and it was a great decision back then. But we just can't really change from Intercom to Drift, but I just look at the Drift with what we do, and wow, these guys, what we do is completely amazing. There is the founder, and then there is ... Kathleen: Dave Gerhardt. Vlad: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kathleen: Dave Cancel, and Dave Gerhardt, or as they like to call themselves, DC and DG. Vlad: DC and DG. Yeah, exactly. DC and DG, and what they do on social media, this is completely nuts. They are super, super active what they do. They came up with new projects, new content, new ideas, new landing pages, new books, new everything. And then we do this all of this experience is so beautiful and so extraordinary that I feel like I am part of this company every single day. Every time, when I read something about the company where they are products, I really feel proud that we did this, that we are doing this. I feel part of this company. Even though I am not even a user, I am not even a customer of this. And they did this just by creating a culture of their company that this is like we are building something extraordinary. Especially even their attitude that they do. DC, when they have a conference that we are organizing, probably a couple times a year, and they saw how DC is writing messages in Twitter that, "Let me know if you are coming to the conference. I am coming to personally pick you up at the airport and get you to the conference. From the airport, to the conference." Kathleen: Yeah. Vlad: This is the most amazing thing that a founder can do in the day of the conference. When you have so many things to focus on in the day of the conference, you are picking up people from the airport. Like, really? This is the commitment that I want to see from all the company that I am using. Kathleen: That's great. You know, it's funny. So, I did have Dave Gerhardt, who's DG, on a as a guest on the podcast, and he was one of the earlier guests, and it was so fun to pick his brain specifically about what he is doing with LinkedIn Video, because he's really good with that. And but what I love about what you just did is I've had, since that time, I've had a lot of my guests actually mention Drift when I ask this question, but you're the first person who's gotten really specific about what it is you like about how they're doing their marketing and how it made you feel. And I think that's so interesting, and I love what you said about feeling like you're a part of the company even though you're not an employee, you're not a customer. That's a very fascinating take on it. Vlad: Yeah, in case of my book, I interview 20 people, and DC was one of the people that I wanted to make an interview for 20 minutes, to get him in the book. But he actually didn't have time, and he forwarded the message to DG, and when DG also didn't have time. But when I asked for a quote, and he gave me at least a quote. Kathleen: Oh, that's nice. Yeah, they have a lot going on. Vlad: Yeah, exactly. I was like, "Okay, I totally get it. Please give me a quote at least. I would be super, super happy for a quote." And they did it. Kathleen: That's good. Well, second question. The world of digital marketing is changing at a lightning fast pace, and the thing I hear from most marketers is that they don't have the time to keep up with it. So, how do you personally educate yourself and stay on top of everything that's changing so that you remain on the cutting edge? Vlad: So, couple of things that I do, this is I have couple of people that I'm following on Twitter. This is obviously Matt Navarra, everyone knows about Matt Navarra in social media. There is no chance you don't know about Matt Navarra in social media, because he is writing all the latest updates in social media, and everything what's happening. And then there are also other people that I am following, like Geoff Desreumaux, from We Are Social Media. Also, I am also following We Are Social Media a lot. This is WeRSM- Kathleen: WeRSM. Yeah, one of my other guests turned me onto their newsletter, which is great. Vlad: Yeah, this is super awesome, I love their newsletters just because they add the GIF usually in the beginning of the newsletter, and it's usually fun. Yeah. And I'm also following, and I am part of lots of Facebook groups. Like SaaS marketers and founders, and product marketers with Josh Fechter, and B2B bloggers as well. And I believe that Facebook groups are helping me to stay in touch with the marketing industry, like from underneath. From the underground of it. Because you can read lots of updates and everything else what's happening in the industry with like on TechCrunch, and many other websites. But actually getting the true reaction and understanding what's truly happening in industry, you can only get from the people that are doing this every single day, consistently. And then this was the first. There's Twitter, then second is Facebook, and the first part, this is Zest. I met the founder last year, and- Kathleen: Yam? Yam Regev? Vlad: Yeah, exactly. And they are doing an incredible job with building a platform that helps you put all of the best content right in front of you directly in your face, and they really put some of the best content. I am constantly ... if I'm looking for some marketing content, there is no chance I'm not looking this on Zest first of all, and if I don't find a good answers, I might Google it or as for someone else for more tips and tricks on this. Kathleen: Yeah, that is a very good one. I know we use it a lot at Impact. And I actually just emailed Yam, who is the founder of Zest, saying I wanted to have him on the podcast, so Yam, if you're listening ... answer my email. Vlad: That's awesome. Yeah, if you want I can just drop him a quick message- Kathleen: Do it. Do it. Let's gang up on him and get him to come on. He's great. Vlad: I will message him on Facebook after our call and make sure that he answers your message. Kathleen: Perfect. Vlad: Yeah, he's really cool. I invited him for a conference in Moldova, in my home country, and lots of people said that he was one of the best guests that they had. So, I really think he'll be a great addition to the podcast. Kathleen: Yeah, yeah. And Zest, it's Zest.is, if you're listening. It's a great browser extension for Chrome, so when you open a new window, literally it's like a curated publication of top marketing articles. So, totally agree with you on that one. Great, great suggestions and insights, Vlad. How To Connect With Vlad Kathleen: If somebody wants to learn more about Planable, or get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that? Vlad: So, if they want to get in touch with me, like really if you have absolutely any questions, hit me up on Twitter, or LinkedIn, or Vlad@Planable.io. I am more than happy to help and answer any questions. As Kathleen also said in the beginning, I am trying to be active in mentoring communities, so I am trying to ... I'm currently actually mentoring couple of people on building their own digital agencies, and also their startups. And if you really have any questions or need some advice in this, we'd be more than happy to chat or jump on a call. And then if you want to learn more about Planable, and see how we are changing the content marketing collaboration generation, just go on Planable.io. Kathleen: Great. Well, I'll put all those links in the show notes, so if you want to check any of them out, head over there and you'll be able to get in touch with Vlad, or check out Planable. Thank you so much. This was really fun, and it's great to hear your story, and I'm so impressed by what a structured process and team you have for a company that really is still very young. So, there's kudos to you for figuring that out as quickly as you did. Vlad: Thank you. I really appreciate that, and thanks a lot for having me today. You Know What To Do Next... Kathleen: Of course, and if you're listening, and you liked what you heard, or learned something new, of course leave the podcast a five star review on Apple Podcasts. We always appreciate it. Vlad: Yeah, totally. Kathleen: And if you know somebody else doing kick ass inbound marketing work, tweet me @WorkMommyWork, because they could be my next guest. That's it for this week. Thanks, Vlad. Vlad: Thank you.

On this episode, Abadesi talks to Matt Navarra, a social media consultant from the UK. He is a self-described “Facebook geek” who has worked in digital communications for the UK government and was previously social media director at The Next Web. In this episode: Matt analyzes current trends in the social media landscape, including whether the current craze around ephemeral content is here to stay. He lays out his predictions for the future of social media 10-20 years from now, talks about the potential benefits of regulation of social media, and why algorithms need to have ethics. Matt also provides a ton of tips for founders and makers to help grow their social media following. We of course also talk about some of his favorite products to help up your social media game, tools that social media managers can't live without, and the smart home devices he loves. We’ll be back next week so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Breaker, Overcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Also, big thanks to AngelList and FreshBooks for their support.

Social media keeps changing. It seems that every few weeks you hear that Facebook has some new algorithm that messes up all the energy you’ve been putting into it. Then a new feature appears and everyone tells you how amazing it is for branding and marketing. And then it turns out that it’s not as amazing as everyone says (remember Periscope?). How do we keep track of the social media marketing trends? How do we adapt? How do make sure to stay atop of the ever-flowing changes but at the same time never waste too much energy on them either? Today I interview an expert to help you answer all those questions about social media marketing trends. During my recent trip around the world, I was able to go to the Falcon.io "Spark" conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, where I finally had a chance to meet up with someone I've known and respected in social media for quite some time: Matt Navarra, a social media consultant and former social media director for the The Next Web as well as consultant to organizations such as the United Nations and BBC. In this interview I talk with Matt about what has happened to social media in the past 12 months and what’s next for the future with regards to social media marketing trends. Should businesses continue experimenting with Facebook? How can brands make use of both Instagram and Facebook Stories? What is the next big thing? Listen to find out!

Mark Zuckerberg survived Congress. Now what? That's the big question now that the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have put Zuckerberg and Facebook under the microscope. After 10+ hours of testimony, plenty of clueless questions, and multiple promises that Facebook's team would "follow up" with lawmakers, the public now has a chance to re-examine its fundamental relationship with Facebook, and judge whether or not "breach of trust" that Zuckerberg has admitted will lead to fundamental change. Zuckerberg has promised the company would atone for past sins through audits of former developers and changes in how it handles data. It's also addressing the accusation that it enabled Russian operatives to manipulate its network in an attempt to sway public opinion with better detection tools and much greater transparency in its advertisers -- a clear attempt to get ahead of new regulations, such as the Honest Ads Act, before they hit the social network like a speeding freight train. One of the fundamental questions the hearings addressed is one that has dogged Facebook almost since its beginning: Is it a tech company or a media company? Zuckerberg tried to have it both ways in the hearings, but Republican lawmakers seized upon his ambivalence, pointing to alleged bias against conservative views and citing the work of former Gizmodo reporter and current Mashable Deputy Tech Editor Michael Nuñez, where he uncovered an anti-conservative slant in Facebook's (now defunct) trending news team back in 2016. Nuñez speaks out for the first time about having his work cited in this debate on this week's MashTalk podcast, where we also discuss Facebook's broader responsibilities. The Next Web's Matt Navarra, a long-time Facebook observer and commentator, also joins to help unpack the hearings, what will happen next, and whether or not the whole affair has strengthened or weakened Facebook. And, hey, did Zuckerberg actually hint there may someday be a paid version? Follow Matt on Twitter. Follow Michael, Pete, and MashTalk, too.

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