Do Good Spotlight
🌟 Wikipedia 🌟

If you have a smartphone, you’ve probably used Wikipedia to win a disagreement or two. “When did this movie come out?” “Who originally sang this song?” We’ve been there. That’s why we’re choosing them as our spotlight this week. They’ve saved us a few times, it’s time to give them a little support back: Wikipedia.

• Many of us think AI is smarter than us on all levels. 🤖 Even though some AIs can pass the bar exam, they are missing out on a crucial, simplistic element (most) humans have: common sense. This TED Talk by Yejin Choi outlines why AI is not yet the sharpest crayon in the box. Even though the talk took place last April, the point still rings true. When testing a variation of her prompt: “Would I get a flat tire by bicycling over a bridge that is suspended over nails, screws, and broken glass?” I get the same “Yes” response from ChatGPT. I even explained why it was wrong and asked the same prompt with a car. No change. AI still has a ways to go for ultimate knowledge domination…

• Google is moving where the reports are found in the UI for some accounts. If you need some help finding it, here’s SEL to the rescue!

• We’ve been hearing stories about how some in the executive suite/board don’t understand marketing goals and capabilities. For example, the Snoop Dogg ad for Solo Stove was a witty awareness play. Because the ad did not derive significant revenue in six weeks, Solo viewed the campaign as a failure and replaced the CEO. CMI points out the failure wasn’t the revenue, but the missing CTA that could have engaged audiences and guided them down the customer journey if sales, not awareness, was the real goal.My thoughts tie into the intro. Perhaps if there were more thoughtful pauses throughout the campaign creation process, maybe they would have picked up the mistakes in marketing CTA and analysis. Thank you to Amy Masters for sharing this with us.

Before you go off for the rest of your day, take a moment to pause. See how it might give some distance between you and the demands or stresses of Wednesday.

You’re awesome,

Natalie

What’s the new coolest trend?📈🤳😎

1. Find your digital marketing friends.
2. Creatively bring up WHW in all conversations with them. Examples of totally not-awkward conversational K-turns:
   • “That’s cool you got a new car… Have you heard of the What’s Hot Wednesday newsletter??”
   • “You need help finding your phone? I’ll help! Once I do, I’ll show you how to sign up for What’s Hot Wednesday!”
   • You: Knock, knock.
     Your Friend: Who’s there?
     You: What’s Hot
     Your Friend: What’s Hot, who?
     You: What’s Hot Wednesday! You should sign up today!
3. Okay, maybe don’t use those. But you should bring us up with your friends. Send them all the signup link. 😁

Do Good Spotlight
🌟 Toys for Tots 🌟

Quick quiz: what organization has distributed 652 million toys to 291 million deserving children? If you guessed Toys for Tots, you’d be right! The Marine Toys for Tots Program’s mission is to collect new unwrapped toys and distribute those toys to less fortunate children at Christmas. Learn how you can support them: Toys for Tots.

• Have you ever been to an all-you-can-eat buffet with none of the dishes labeled correctly? That same confusion you get wondering if that dish on the back burner is chicken or pork is what advertisers feel on the Google Search Partner network (GSP). Advertisers have reported finding their ads on questionable websites, some of which were blocked. And this is why DBE tends to avoid the GSP network for our clients….

• Listening is one of the hardest skills to learn. It’s not something you can take a seminar on and call it a day. It’s an everyday practice. A constant choice. A meaningful awareness of yourself. A heartful connection with another. Quick Study posted a thoughtful piece on listening in marketing. I especially recommend reading the part about “transit hub” vs. “community” brands. Knowing where your brand lies in that mix is crucial to how you can best serve your customers.

• Marketing Charts has data from Dentsu on what roles CMOs are prioritizing for the next 12 months vs. the last 12 months. Top priorities include “ensuring effective brand management” and “developing the overall customer experience.” The story notes that B2C CMOs are held more accountable for customer satisfaction and advocacy while B2B CMOs are more likely to be responsible for the delivery of digital transformation programs.

See you on the flipside, friends. Have a superb week!💖

Natalie

Tap dancing is an incredible skill… and these brothers make it look easy! 🕺🏻🕺🏻

I don’t know about you, but I am inspired. 🤩

Perhaps you’re inspired enough to share us with your friends…. Here’s the link!

Do Good Spotlight
🌟 Adaptive Adventures 🌟

Adventure is for everyone.

Adaptive Adventures’ vision is to ensure that all individuals with physical disabilities have access to participation in outdoor sports regardless of their location, equipment needs or economic status. As another member of REI Cooperative Action Fund, they are an organization working to make outdoor activities inclusive to all! Learn more about their mission and programs: Adaptive Adventures.

• Search Engine Land reassessed the value of links. One of the key takeaways: links are a great signal that users value in your content. They reinforce the Expertise, Experience, Authority, and Trust (EEAT) elements of your content that are core to Google’s current algorithm.
  LinkedIn and other social posts with links provide similar signals that reinforce EEAT and influence not only SEO rankings but also SAIO citations. See our latest blog below: ⬇️⬇️⬇️

DBE Insights 💭

As part of our ongoing “human” learning process on conversational AI searches, we’ve been talking with the chatbots themselves about their “machine learning” processes. We shared a recent Q&A session with Google’s Bard with an important question:

How would you rate LinkedIn, X (Twitter), and Facebook in terms of relevance and trustworthiness?

We made the table below based on Bard’s answer. Learn more in our latest blog!

• We’ve all heard interviews that range on the scale of not-so-great to absolutely-crushed-it. It may seem like the focus is only on the interviewee, but the interviewer is a major driver of the interview outcome. Dave Purdy goes over some true and hard-tested tips to conduct great interviews.

Look for the small sparks of joy in your day. They’re scattered about in every direction. You just have to look for them. 🙂

Happy Wednesday!

Natalie

Did you know Wednesday was named after the Norse God, Odin?

Actually, all the weekday names are based on Norse mythology.

Before I give you the link to learn more on that, send your digital marketing friends this signup link!

Okay, here it is: Norse Gods & Days of the Week.

Do Good Spotlight
🌟 Smile Farms 🌟

Smile Farms has become a nonprofit leader in creating meaningful jobs in agricultural settings for adults with developmental disabilities, almost none of whom have worked before.Their founding story is super sweet, too. Jim McCann, Founder/Chairman of 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc., had a brother living in Independent Group Living Home (IGHL), a residence for people with developmental disabilities, so he teamed up with the home’s CEO, Walter Stockton, to create this program. Learn more about what they’re doing: Smile Farms.

• How is AI being used by companies like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Sprout Social? (Hootsuite is another platform using an AI generative chatbot function.) Read the sections on “Responsible AI use in marketing” and “The consequences of losing consumer trust” to understand the potential issues associated with the use of AI marketing tools.

• Speaking of ethical AI, Hans van Dam’s Ted Talk, “What happens when AI writes a TED Talk…” struck a chord with me. He talks of overcoming AI bias by allowing more “poets” into the AI project room. By “poets,” he means those interested in how language and people influence each other. What I loved is the idea of “teaching AI to help us become better people” by instilling thoughtful values from the start.

• Google removed the individual and ad-group keyword forecasting in Keyword Planner due to the lack of use. This doesn’t affect us as we can still conduct Google keyword research for our clients.

• The constant notification pings on our phones leaves our brains in a perpetual state of alert. Turning off non-essential notifications, setting app timers, and leaving the phone out-of-sight can help give your brain a reprieve and, hopefully, get you back to appreciating the moment. 😊

Toodles,

Natalie

Why shouldn’t you gossip in a corn field? Too many ears around. 🌽

What is a scarecrow’s favorite fruit? The straw-berry. 🍓

What should you wear to keep warm in autumn? A har-vest. 🎃

Welp, That’s fall folks! 🍂

*insert pause as the audience roars with laughter*

Tell all your friends these awesome, autumn jokes, AND send them a link to join our digital marketing party!

Do Good Spotlight
🌟 Firefighters Without Borders 🌟

The whole world has been impacted by the wildfires in Canada. Firefighters Without Borders is helping to equip firefighters with emergency response training and fire response equipment across Canada and the world. See what they do here: Firefighters Without Borders.

• The Search 🔎 Wars: “Is Google past it’s search advertising prime?” This eMarketer chart shows Google’s share of non retail search spend has declined since 2021. Don’t fall for the clickbait headline though.
  Yes, Google’s share is down a tad since 2021…and, yes, Microsoft and Apple are on the upticks,…BUT Google still captures ~70% of the search spend. So to paraphrase a lotto motto, you still gotta be in it to win it.

• You might have seen auto-reply messages in Instagram, but do you know how you can set them up? HootSuite shows us how to do it directly on Instagram and if you’re a paying HootSuite user, how to set up auto-replies on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. That’s not the only cool thing about the video… It’s also narrated by a dog. 🐕 It’s a fun watch!

Wishing you a healthy and happy week!

Natalie

You know the Day-O (Banana Boat) song I mentioned at the beginning?

Turns out, it is based on a Jamaican work song.

To share more interesting facts and news with your buddies, send them this signup link!

Do Good Spotlight
🌟 The Wayback Machine: Internet Archive 🌟

This nonprofit is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. It’s fabulous when you need to reference an older version of a website. The kicker is that they allow you to do so freely. See more about what they do and how you can help: The Wayback Machine.

• Google is removing 4 attribution models in Google Ads & Analytics later this year: First-click, Linear, Time Decay, and Position-based. Basically, anything that isn’t last-click will be much harder to track.

• How is AI shifting marketing approaches? Get the pros and cons for using AI across a spectrum of marketing disciplines. While it’s been said before, this con is worth repeating: “Since artificial intelligence cannot think independently, there are massive concerns about the quality, accuracy and integrity of its output.” Read more in Martech.

Just for Fun: What actually happens when people interact with animals? 🐰🐶🦜🐱🐢

Pssst… hey you… yeah you. You’re doing great. Have a phenomenal rest of your week. 😎

Natalie

I’m sure if your pets could talk, they’d tell you to share this newsletter with your friends.

Okay, they probably wouldn’t. (My pup would probably say, “Give me more peanut butter.”)

… But you should send your friends this signup link anyway! 😺

Do Good Spotlight
🌟 New Jersey Future 🌟

We have to think smart when it comes to land and people. New Jersey Future works to use land sustainably to benefit people now and in the future. They conduct research, develop policies, advocate, and assist to keep communities healthy and nature protected. Honestly, they do so many things, you might want to read more for yourself here: New Jersey Future.

• Think with Google has put out a lotta content in the past 10 years, and guess what? They put it in this nice highlight list! Our personal favorites include: “Why it’s time to say goodbye to the traditional marketing funnel” and “Why consumer intent is more powerful than demographics.”

• Ever heard of the K.I.S.S. acronym? Keeping writing simple and concise could make or break a campaign. See why in this HBR article.

Whether you’re into the spooky season or not, I hope you’re enjoying the beautiful, fall weather! 🍁

Have a gourd day!

Natalie

We think your friends will fall 🍂 for our newsletter.

Send them this signup link!

… Come on, don’t leaf us hanging!

Do Good Spotlight
🌟 The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children 🌟

Since 1984, The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) has worked ceaselessly to help reunite families when children are separated from their families. They work with law enforcement to help find missing children, reduce child exploitation, and prevent child victimization. We’ve supported them for years and invite you to learn more here: https://www.missingkids.org/HOME

• The Status of SEO 🔎
  • Search Engine Watch offers “An SEO strategy flywheel to win leadership buy-in and drive results.” In essence, it follows the same approach DBE uses, but it also includes discussion of “confident humility” as defined by Adam Grant. He says it’s” the sweet spot in the axes of confidence and competence.”

• • One of our potential clients recently asked us how long SEO takes. Our rule-of-thumb response is 4-6 months for significant improvements, though dynamic sites (sites with lots of content changes, think news, and e-commerce) can start to see results much faster. Google the question and you’ll see the same response in the results. Dig a little further and you’ll find the results of a recent survey of 75 SEO experts in this from Morningscore.

• The full switch to GA4 is right around the bend! Dana DiTomaso breaks down the 4 simple things you need to know, including how all hits are “events” and that “engagement rate” is not the opposite of bounce rate. Definitely a good, straight-forward read.

 

Wishing you a happy Wednesday! If you’re in the mood for a chuckle, check out these Wednesday memes.

 

Farewell friends – until next time!

Natalie

 

Congrats for making it to the bottom of this newsletter! 🥳

You must have really liked it!

Hey, you know what? (What, Natalie?)

You should tell your friends about us!

Send them this signup link!

Do Good Spotlight
🌟 All Hands and Hearts 🌟

Kentucky faced devastating floods this past July. To help those affected, All Hands and Hearts puts all hands on deck to offer relief. They are helping remove debris and repair homes damaged by the intense flooding. Now the people of Puerto Rico are reeling from Hurricane Fiona, All Hands and Hearts is there, too. Learn how you can help: https://www.allhandsandhearts.org/

• Meta is merging content moderation teams for ad content and central integrity. What this means for you:
  • Business and everyday users will receive the same customer support treatment.
  • Meta will hold both everyday and business users to the same content standards.

• Google has updated YMYL (your money or your life) guidelines for websites. In short, they want to ensure websites are providing trustworthy and reputable content to help users quickly get to relevant content when it comes to these topics. This aligns with the “helpful content” algorithm update recently implemented as well as E-A-T (expertise-authoritative-trust) signals Google likes to see. 👍
  • PS: For more on E-A-T, check out the origins of E-A-T 20 years ago written by Mike Grehan (who Marc worked with while serving on the Board of SEMPO).

Whenever I say goodbye on a Zoom call, I think of this Laurel and Hardy skit. I hope it makes you smile on your next call. 😁

Goodbye for now!

Natalie

Still not ready to say goodbye? 😢

Share us with your friends to keep the party going! 🥳

Send them this signup link!

Do Good Spotlight
🌟 The Nature Conservancy 🌟

The Nature Conservancy is a global environmental nonprofit creating a world where people and nature thrive. Founded in the U.S. through grassroots action in 1951, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) has become one of the most effective and wide-reaching environmental organizations in the world. DBE donated to support this high-rated not-for-profit, and we encourage you to see if you’d like to support them too: https://www.nature.org/en-us/

• “Where is the Media ‘Talent Crisis’ Greatest?” is the question Marketing Charts answers with data from a World Federation of Advertisers and MediaSense survey. The answer? The highest scarcity of talent is in the area of data and analytics, while almost half (46%) of media industry stakeholders feel the industry is having its “worst ever talent crisis”.

• Need professional video for your storytelling projects? 🎥 We recommend you take a look at our strategic partner, Down the Road Productions. They’re based in Ohio with their owner fresh from years of top-tier work in NYC. If you’re looking for a video partner, check them out at DTRP.co and you can learn more about owner/director/producer, Andrew Anthony.

• Looking for a chuckle? Check out these humorous ads! Warning: this has some adult content (rated PG-13ish).

Wishing you a happy, healthy September!

Until next time…

Natalie

 

Why don’t oysters share their pearls? 🦪

Because they’re shellfish!

…

Don’t be an oyster, share us with your friends!