In this 5‑10 minute daily podcast episode, host Dan Willis reviews a series of recent articles and videos that together paint a picture of current trends and challenges in social media and digital marketing. He begins by highlighting an Entrepreneur piece that argues marketers must treat their community as a core team member, shifting from agency‑centric thinking to community‑driven strategy—a shift applicable to both large brands and small businesses. Next, Willis introduces a LinkedIn strategy guide from Andrew and Pete, emphasizing practical tactics for measurable success on the platform. He then moves to influencer economics, noting that Pinterest influencers are struggling because ad spend is flowing to Instagram, prompting a debate about whether to double‑down on a niche platform or follow the money to larger networks. Willis follows with a HubSpot roundup of eight successful TikTok influencer campaigns, illustrating how brands are targeting younger audiences through platform‑specific content. He also promotes Mike Alton’s updated blog planner, urging bloggers to own their website and improve organic traffic. Finally, Willis discusses a Telegraph investigation exposing billions of dollars lost to fraudulent click farms, reinforcing his skepticism toward paid advertising and advocating for influencer‑driven, word‑of‑mouth tactics. Throughout, he invites listener feedback and promotes the ongoing weekday series.
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Good social media morning, guys. Let's— Good social media morning, guys. We are back at it. It's Monday. Let's go. Welcome back, guys. I hope you had an amazing weekend. We are back at it every day here, 5, 10-minute episodes helping you break down what's going on in the world of social media and digital marketing. If that sounds like something you'd like in your feed daily, make sure to click that subscribe, like, bell here on YouTube and whatever there is elsewhere as far as subscribing. To listen on podcast if you're listening on Google or Apple or Stitcher or wherever else. But let's get down to it today, guys. We got a bunch of articles that we really want to dive into, some killer content for you to help your game on social and digital. So let's see what we've got. So there's an article from Entrepreneur that we've got here for you. As always, guys, links to these articles are always down below in the comment section no matter what platform you're watching or listening to this on. So make sure to go down and check it out if you want some more details on it. But there's a phenomenal article here from entrepreneur.com that's breaking breaking down the essential need to shift from the mentality of working through your community and working with your community. And it really has evolved to that in social and digital marketing, that understanding that key concept that one of the best players on your marketing team is no longer just the marketing agency that you work with or your CMO. Your community is a massive part of your team and understanding that and utilizing that to your advantage can be massive. And it's not something that's restricted to just large mega brands. That's something that very small brands can do, startups, small businesses, can really leverage their local community that they have built to work to their favor in their marketing efforts. It's a fantastic article by Entrepreneur. I love the mind shift on it. It touches a little bit on influencer marketing, a little bit on word of mouth. It really builds up the community as to a core piece of your marketing strategy. I love it. Next up, we've got Andrew and Pete dropping a little LinkedIn wisdom on us. LinkedIn is a big beast for many people out there these days, and they want to break down for you how you can actually see the success you're hoping to get off of LinkedIn. It's a great strategy that they've laid out. I enjoyed the video that they threw in there. If you like the video content, that's great. But as always, guys, Andrew and Pete deliver. They know what they're talking about. They do this day in, day out. They're not just people that spew. They're not talking heads. They're in the industry. They're busting their butt. They're getting it done. I highly recommend this one if you're looking to up your LinkedIn strategy. In the world of influencer marketing, we're back at it again. There's a lot of people that are on Pinterest right now that are influencers in their own respective niches, but they're saying that it's difficult for them to advocate for Pinterest as influencers simply because the money's not there. They're saying Instagram is a very similar platform as far as visual goes. You've got visual platforms kind of all over the place these days, video being included in that. So they're saying that the reality is influencer marketing is going to flow to where the dollars are. The dollars just aren't there in Pinterest, and Instagram has a pile of them. So a lot of Pinterest influencers are looking to push their audience towards where they can get those big dollars flowing in. I'd love to hear what you think. Should they be building up Pinterest itself because that's their platform, that's where their community is, or is that just the reality that we've got to give in to the Zuckerberg machine and move on over to his platforms because that's where the dollars is. I'd love to hear your thoughts down below in the comments section. Let me know. The influencer train keeps on rolling. Now people are wondering, what does an influencer campaign look like on TikTok? Well, there's an article from HubSpot here that is fantastic in pointing out 8 influencer campaigns that are doing it right. It really does a great job of giving you a comprehensive view of how different brands are playing in. They've taken the time, they've analyzed influencers, analyzed the community. They've figured if there's a fit, great, this is how we're gonna approach them. And TikTok is one of those new platforms too. So all of them really pair nicely together. I love the blend that we're seeing here of brands identifying a younger demographic. They're understanding how the platform is used, and then they're engaging with influencers that have a massive ability to draw attention right now from that younger demographic. For all of you bloggers out there, Mike Alton has dropped a new and revised blog planner for the year. Uh, for some people that's not a big deal, but for most, you should have a website, you should have a blog, you should be owning your property. Don't just rely on social media. And Mike is a brute when it comes to that. I highly recommend you check this out, guys. He's got a fantastic planner. You can get a digital copy or a real-world copy. If you are taking your website seriously this year, you want to improve your website traffic, the inbound traffic, organic traffic, you want better search results, then you need to get on top of your blogging game and Mike can get you there. Definitely check this out. Last but not least, I want to touch on paid advertising again, guys. When we're working with marketing, there's a lot of different vehicles that we use. Paid marketing is a big one. There is a a great article from Telegraph out today showcasing the billions, billions of dollars being lost to malicious clicks from robotic services elsewhere in the world, whether that's Russia, Asia, even here at home domestically. There are tons of farms that are just clickbait driving up ad sales, and that hurts you as advertisers, it hurts the consumers, and it really makes you think about, am I owning my advertising process as much as I'm owning my content and my property? This is one of the allures to influencer marketing. You know the influencer directly, it's a person, You have a conversation, there's a relationship built there. You know that the community is there and for the most part you're seeing integrity in the contract that you have with Facebook ads, Google ads. You don't have that. Essentially it's you pay the big man what he asks for in the hopes that the traffic that is being sent to you is genuine. When you do get those link clicks, the reality is it looks like billions, billions of dollars of clicks are just completely fraudulent. They're fake. They're not there. For me, I know that personally I have shied away from the paid advertising for a long time. Uh, I feel it's overpriced. I feel it's, it's a poor return on your investment as far as marketing and ad dollars goes. Uh, influencer marketing, creating better content, that seems to go a lot further. Focusing on word of mouth locally. There's so many other ways to go about your marketing strategy. This article is just giving more credibility to that argument that the more money you throw at ads, the less likely it is that actual people are clicking through and joining into your website. So, uh, definitely take a look at that. It's a fantastic article. That's it for today though, guys. I do appreciate all the listens so far, guys. It's been an amazing start for the first month. I'm stoked with where this podcast slash YouTube series is going. It's definitely going to keep running all year long, Monday through Friday. As always though, we are kind of new. I am looking to improve, and I've got some great feedback so far from you guys that are listening and watching. So no matter where you guys listen and watch on this, go ahead and reach out to me on Twitter in a DM and say, hey Dan, I love this, but I would do this. I am not one of those guys that's going to get hurt feelings when you give me some feedback and criticism. The criticism and critiques that I've already received have been phenomenal for helping me figure out where to take this program next. So huge thank you to all you that listen. If you're not subscribed already, get that done, and I will catch you tomorrow with another episode. Thanks, guys.
