1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,302 I just got back from Social Media Marketing World and AI Business World 2 00:00:04,402 --> 00:00:09,362 and after seeing everything for a few days I came to one conclusion. 3 00:00:09,822 --> 00:00:12,552 AI is not gonna save bad marketing. 4 00:00:12,602 --> 00:00:16,392 In fact, it might almost expose it even faster. 5 00:00:16,552 --> 00:00:18,012 Let's talk about that today. 6 00:00:52,664 --> 00:00:57,074 G'day everyone, it's Michelle J Raymond here back from a week and 7 00:00:57,074 --> 00:01:00,544 a bit in the US of A in Anaheim. 8 00:01:00,544 --> 00:01:02,434 Yep, that's right, home of Disneyland. 9 00:01:02,744 --> 00:01:06,554 But this time it was for Social Media Marketing World which also 10 00:01:06,554 --> 00:01:09,964 incorporated AI Business World this year. 11 00:01:10,274 --> 00:01:13,284 So for those of you who haven't been before, set the scene. 12 00:01:13,314 --> 00:01:18,174 It's about two and a half thousand marketers, social media managers, business 13 00:01:18,174 --> 00:01:23,154 owners all in the one place, all there to talk shop across all the social 14 00:01:23,154 --> 00:01:29,194 media platforms and obviously how AI is impacting all of that was a big part. 15 00:01:29,194 --> 00:01:32,644 So we have vendors that are showing off new tools which was 16 00:01:32,644 --> 00:01:34,334 kinda cool to go and check out. 17 00:01:34,704 --> 00:01:41,244 Um, but ultimately we had marketers, and I watched them, cramming their brains full 18 00:01:41,244 --> 00:01:44,684 of new ideas for, the best part of what? 19 00:01:44,684 --> 00:01:48,424 Two and a half, three days straight and I watched them furiously 20 00:01:48,424 --> 00:01:52,294 typing and trying to keep up with everything that they're learning. 21 00:01:52,614 --> 00:01:56,114 I guess if you saw them it's almost like brains exploding. 22 00:01:56,234 --> 00:02:00,064 I know how they felt because I was doing the same thing. 23 00:02:00,704 --> 00:02:05,714 Now I'm gonna share what I think actually matters in B2B marketing 24 00:02:05,744 --> 00:02:09,664 right now based on the lessons that I learned while I was at the show. 25 00:02:10,174 --> 00:02:14,984 But honestly I'm gonna have to say that my favourite part is still being in 26 00:02:14,984 --> 00:02:17,704 the room with so many amazing people. 27 00:02:18,074 --> 00:02:24,214 I'm going to share with you some of my key lessons from what I've taken away so 28 00:02:24,214 --> 00:02:32,504 far with the disclaimer of this I suck at learning in a classroom style environment. 29 00:02:32,504 --> 00:02:37,774 So having the most amazing speakers in the world, on stage, it is 30 00:02:37,774 --> 00:02:42,174 still very hard for me to sit still and listen and take it all in. 31 00:02:42,424 --> 00:02:45,804 My preferred learning style is reading. 32 00:02:45,834 --> 00:02:49,504 And so those of you who are listening to this podcast, you're probably laughing 33 00:02:49,504 --> 00:02:53,294 thinking, "Well, why do I do this?" It's exactly the reason why I do this podcast 34 00:02:53,294 --> 00:02:57,644 because there are those of you out there, if I say, "Go and read this really long 35 00:02:57,644 --> 00:03:02,364 blog or newsletter or post or article," whatever it happens to be, your eyes 36 00:03:02,364 --> 00:03:06,804 are gonna roll back into your head and you're gonna go, "No, give me a podcast." 37 00:03:06,804 --> 00:03:08,504 So that's the first thing. 38 00:03:08,554 --> 00:03:12,804 I haven't watched all of the speakers back. 39 00:03:12,834 --> 00:03:15,904 There are some that I've definitely tagged that I wanna catch up on. 40 00:03:16,554 --> 00:03:20,154 But that doesn't mean that I didn't learn a lot, and that I don't have 41 00:03:20,154 --> 00:03:21,884 anything that I can share with you. 42 00:03:21,914 --> 00:03:26,314 So let's go into key lesson number one, and it's the one that I've been banging 43 00:03:26,314 --> 00:03:32,494 on about pretty much all year on this podcast, and that is strategy matters 44 00:03:33,124 --> 00:03:35,944 so much more now than it ever has. 45 00:03:36,614 --> 00:03:42,654 And I know that obviously there are so many tools out there that 46 00:03:42,754 --> 00:03:49,154 AI helps you to do so much more, but the volume isn't the goal. 47 00:03:49,194 --> 00:03:55,734 And I think that that's what's happening right now is where AI tools promise 48 00:03:55,734 --> 00:03:59,884 productivity and to give marketers back all of this time, we've actually 49 00:03:59,884 --> 00:04:05,324 just swapped that time savings out into doing so much more stuff, and 50 00:04:05,324 --> 00:04:09,134 keeping up seems to be part of the problem that we've got right now. 51 00:04:09,464 --> 00:04:13,774 Now, my talk on Company Pages, five strategies that everybody misses for 52 00:04:13,774 --> 00:04:20,144 conversion, was kind of built on the promise of if we go back to clarity 53 00:04:20,474 --> 00:04:26,054 and we get that right in everything we do from the time we build the Page 54 00:04:26,054 --> 00:04:31,034 through putting content out, engaging with our audience, that is gonna help 55 00:04:31,034 --> 00:04:36,604 us so much more than just doing stuff at scale which lands, like, with a splat. 56 00:04:37,344 --> 00:04:39,334 Feels like you've been slimed, right? 57 00:04:39,734 --> 00:04:44,324 That's why I think there's so much pushback right now on AI content 58 00:04:44,324 --> 00:04:48,564 and tools, and I've been guilty of that myself, because the volume 59 00:04:48,564 --> 00:04:52,134 is there but honestly it doesn't feel like it's talking to me. 60 00:04:52,514 --> 00:04:59,344 I miss that feeling when content I read it or I watch a video, whatever 61 00:04:59,344 --> 00:05:03,634 it happens to be, when I go, "You're actually talking to me, Michelle J 62 00:05:03,634 --> 00:05:08,304 Raymond. This is me. Are you reading my mind?" And so I think that's why the 63 00:05:08,304 --> 00:05:10,474 content has become so easy to ignore. 64 00:05:10,874 --> 00:05:16,694 And if we come back to how LinkedIn's changed right now, LinkedIn wants you to 65 00:05:16,694 --> 00:05:20,084 be an expert on the topic of your choice. 66 00:05:20,214 --> 00:05:24,714 You choose, but just make sure that you stay on track and make it 67 00:05:24,744 --> 00:05:26,494 really, really clear what you do. 68 00:05:26,834 --> 00:05:31,414 So coming back to strategy is, I don't know. 69 00:05:31,514 --> 00:05:35,514 I don't know how many times I can say this, but it is so, so, so important. 70 00:05:35,544 --> 00:05:39,194 And shout-out to all of the LinkedIn speakers that were there. 71 00:05:39,194 --> 00:05:45,164 We had AJ Wilcox, Judi Fox, Louise Brogan, Mandy McEwen, and myself. 72 00:05:45,164 --> 00:05:50,194 Like, go Team LinkedIn because we all were there to support each other, and 73 00:05:50,224 --> 00:05:54,644 if you listen to each of our talks, you will actually find out that we were all 74 00:05:54,644 --> 00:05:59,974 kind of saying, "Get back to strategy," because it's so easy to be distracted. 75 00:06:06,236 --> 00:06:13,546 Lesson number two, I'm going to say that the general vibe is that most AI tools 76 00:06:14,026 --> 00:06:17,216 are accelerators and not replacements. 77 00:06:17,906 --> 00:06:20,106 Now, I have to confess something. 78 00:06:20,136 --> 00:06:26,776 I got the chance to speak to a couple of the AI speakers, and this was offline, 79 00:06:26,806 --> 00:06:30,126 as I said, in some of the corridors, which is where the magic happens. 80 00:06:30,716 --> 00:06:34,786 And one of the things that they said to me is, "Yeah, this is really cool. 81 00:06:35,096 --> 00:06:40,116 I went down a rabbit hole to learn this for eight hours, 12 hours, days at a 82 00:06:40,116 --> 00:06:45,256 time" to learn how to be good at the skills that they brought to the event. 83 00:06:46,006 --> 00:06:49,586 And I was just thinking about the B2B marketing teams that I work with, and 84 00:06:49,586 --> 00:06:55,956 I'm wondering, when do you guys ever get eight to 12 hours to just go offline 85 00:06:56,036 --> 00:06:57,756 and learn how to do these skills? 86 00:06:58,506 --> 00:07:03,706 And that's why I think there's a lot of hesitancy around adopting AI 87 00:07:03,706 --> 00:07:07,886 tools, not because you don't like them, and I had that conversation 88 00:07:07,886 --> 00:07:12,746 with a lot of people, but if it takes too long to master, then you just 89 00:07:12,746 --> 00:07:14,186 don't have the time to give to it. 90 00:07:14,216 --> 00:07:16,841 So That was kind of interesting for me. 91 00:07:16,841 --> 00:07:21,271 And another interesting thing was, yeah, that's really cool to have all of these 92 00:07:21,271 --> 00:07:26,821 tools, and the AI is great, but I'm not allowed to use it within my business. 93 00:07:26,821 --> 00:07:31,111 So for instance, a lot of people are only allowed to use Microsoft Copilot, 94 00:07:31,701 --> 00:07:35,971 and they don't wanna lose their jobs because all of a sudden they're putting 95 00:07:36,001 --> 00:07:40,091 proprietary information into these other tools, and the repercussions 96 00:07:40,091 --> 00:07:42,881 of that nobody wants to risk. 97 00:07:43,181 --> 00:07:46,661 And so that's another reality for what's going on with marketers. 98 00:07:46,691 --> 00:07:51,151 And I would love it if you are watching this on YouTube, leave me a comment, let 99 00:07:51,151 --> 00:07:52,861 me know what's going on in your business. 100 00:07:53,021 --> 00:07:57,271 Is your business fully supportive, or are you hesitant because you don't wanna 101 00:07:57,271 --> 00:08:00,841 do something that jeopardises your role? 102 00:08:01,451 --> 00:08:06,321 Now, that also applies if you are running your own business 103 00:08:06,351 --> 00:08:08,821 and using your client's IP. 104 00:08:09,161 --> 00:08:13,041 And that's something that we discuss in, our business right now is, 105 00:08:13,391 --> 00:08:15,031 are we allowed to use this stuff? 106 00:08:15,121 --> 00:08:16,161 Now, it's great for me. 107 00:08:16,191 --> 00:08:17,721 I can use whatever tool I want. 108 00:08:17,984 --> 00:08:22,524 And that is something that I, you know, try to reel it in because 109 00:08:22,524 --> 00:08:24,374 there are so many different tools. 110 00:08:24,414 --> 00:08:28,344 I was trying to think of examples, but I was reading someone that 111 00:08:28,344 --> 00:08:32,554 said today, you know, we don't have every single streaming service. 112 00:08:32,654 --> 00:08:36,304 You know, we don't have a log-on for all of them all at the same time. 113 00:08:36,304 --> 00:08:36,834 That's a lot. 114 00:08:36,884 --> 00:08:39,004 Now, in fairness, I do have quite a few. 115 00:08:39,414 --> 00:08:42,764 But it's about picking and choosing the right one for the right time. 116 00:08:42,764 --> 00:08:50,417 So I think the plan here is, and the important nuance, is that most of 117 00:08:50,417 --> 00:08:55,324 the AI team were saying it's useful for repurposing, interesting for your 118 00:08:55,354 --> 00:09:01,897 workflows, but it still requires strategy and obviously editorial judgement. 119 00:09:30,313 --> 00:09:34,973 Lesson number three for me was that the human perspective is 120 00:09:34,973 --> 00:09:37,783 definitely becoming more valuable. 121 00:09:38,163 --> 00:09:42,713 If I had a dollar every time I heard someone speak about authenticity 122 00:09:42,773 --> 00:09:48,563 or storytelling or emotions things like loneliness came into play in 123 00:09:48,563 --> 00:09:50,943 some of the, speeches that I heard. 124 00:09:51,723 --> 00:09:56,613 When you think about that, if we come back to it, it's your lived 125 00:09:56,643 --> 00:09:59,546 experience Which is so valuable. 126 00:10:00,016 --> 00:10:04,536 Now, for some people, you might be high-fiving and excited about 127 00:10:04,536 --> 00:10:06,566 that, and I am one of those people. 128 00:10:07,096 --> 00:10:09,766 I love that opinions matter right now. 129 00:10:10,286 --> 00:10:14,366 I love that the more you show that you understand your customer, 130 00:10:14,496 --> 00:10:16,256 the better off that you will be. 131 00:10:16,686 --> 00:10:19,530 And original thinking does matter. 132 00:10:19,863 --> 00:10:25,276 But I also think from this is that there are a lot of people out there 133 00:10:25,306 --> 00:10:29,550 that will hear things that I've just spoken about, and be honest, does the 134 00:10:29,550 --> 00:10:35,240 thought of being more human and share your thoughts as a marketer or as a 135 00:10:35,240 --> 00:10:40,250 business owner or as a social media manager, do you get pushback on that idea? 136 00:10:40,710 --> 00:10:44,300 'Cause I'm not convinced that everybody wants to be out there storytelling, 137 00:10:44,380 --> 00:10:47,870 and storytelling sometimes gets confused for sharing personal stuff 138 00:10:47,920 --> 00:10:49,590 when it comes to LinkedIn especially. 139 00:10:49,940 --> 00:10:55,060 So I know that I've spoken about previously the power of thought 140 00:10:55,060 --> 00:10:58,540 leadership, the power of employee advocacy, how company Pages and 141 00:10:58,540 --> 00:11:03,040 employees work together, the power of two, how powerful comments are, 142 00:11:03,330 --> 00:11:09,650 how important conversations are, how much we value real expertise. 143 00:11:10,170 --> 00:11:15,130 But I'm still not convinced that there's anything more than a few percent of 144 00:11:15,130 --> 00:11:20,220 people in any business that are prepared to put themselves out there and do this. 145 00:11:20,620 --> 00:11:25,380 And I think that fear factor, which we don't talk about on those stages enough, 146 00:11:25,800 --> 00:11:30,680 is the thing that is gonna hold a lot of people back as individuals and as the 147 00:11:30,680 --> 00:11:35,710 business, and that comes from the top to the bottom and everywhere in between. 148 00:11:36,186 --> 00:11:38,296 So does AI help with this? 149 00:11:38,806 --> 00:11:39,416 Maybe. 150 00:11:40,406 --> 00:11:45,876 But I'm not seeing that those who didn't wanna create before all of a sudden going, 151 00:11:45,876 --> 00:11:51,106 "I've now got AI tools. Get out of my way. I can't wait to do this." So that was 152 00:11:51,106 --> 00:11:52,916 another thing that I've been pondering. 153 00:11:53,246 --> 00:11:55,426 And again, DM me on LinkedIn. 154 00:11:55,906 --> 00:11:58,276 Let me know, what are you thinking about all of this stuff? 155 00:11:58,276 --> 00:12:02,166 That, as I said, has been my favourite part of the whole three days in 156 00:12:02,166 --> 00:12:06,696 Social Media Marketing World, having conversations with real-life marketers 157 00:12:07,046 --> 00:12:09,096 that are doing this day by day. 158 00:12:09,326 --> 00:12:13,176 So if we are not connected on LinkedIn, please make sure that you reach out. 159 00:12:13,206 --> 00:12:14,926 Let me know that you listen to the podcast. 160 00:12:15,266 --> 00:12:21,606 I'd love to hear your thoughts on how AI is in reality in your day-to-day 161 00:12:21,606 --> 00:12:23,826 jobs because, yeah, I don't know. 162 00:12:23,826 --> 00:12:25,876 I'm not sure that it's living up to the hype. 163 00:12:31,588 --> 00:12:35,708 What's the next lesson that I take away from Social Media Marketing World 164 00:12:35,708 --> 00:12:37,248 that I think that you need to know? 165 00:12:37,488 --> 00:12:43,646 I think that B2B marketers need to find a way to make sure that they 166 00:12:43,766 --> 00:12:48,396 don't burn out and don't live in a constant state of being overwhelmed. 167 00:12:48,969 --> 00:12:53,352 And I really got the pressure to master AI, the pressure to 168 00:12:53,352 --> 00:12:57,292 post more, the pressure to be experts across all platforms. 169 00:12:57,722 --> 00:13:03,032 I was having a chat to one person, shout out to Erica, and when she told 170 00:13:03,032 --> 00:13:07,722 me what a day in the life was for her role, and we spoke about this in 171 00:13:07,722 --> 00:13:11,172 depth, it's definitely the standout conversation for me over those three 172 00:13:11,172 --> 00:13:14,002 days, my jaw was on the ground. 173 00:13:14,042 --> 00:13:16,442 I was thinking how do you do comms? 174 00:13:16,442 --> 00:13:17,322 How do you do social? 175 00:13:17,322 --> 00:13:18,992 How do you do thought leadership for leaders? 176 00:13:18,992 --> 00:13:20,202 How do you do blogs? 177 00:13:20,202 --> 00:13:21,662 How do you keep it updated? 178 00:13:21,992 --> 00:13:25,432 And she just shrugged and she's like, "That's my job, Michelle. That's 179 00:13:25,432 --> 00:13:29,742 the requirements of the job that I have." And I could see just by how 180 00:13:29,742 --> 00:13:34,162 many notes people were taking during the sessions, they were typing away. 181 00:13:34,472 --> 00:13:38,952 We had people that had recording devices, which is a story for another day. 182 00:13:39,552 --> 00:13:46,792 But ultimately, at some point you become the own bottleneck to your leveling 183 00:13:46,882 --> 00:13:52,062 up, and I think the key here is to come back and just pick one small problem. 184 00:13:52,465 --> 00:13:56,945 What is one thing that you could implement over the next three months? 185 00:13:56,945 --> 00:14:00,915 And let's have realistic timeframes 'cause most of you are in back-to-back meetings. 186 00:14:01,515 --> 00:14:03,875 Is it that you could get better at repurposing? 187 00:14:04,175 --> 00:14:10,085 Or is it that you could now learn how easy it is to add captions into your videos? 188 00:14:10,625 --> 00:14:13,625 Or clipping tools, like maybe that's something that 189 00:14:13,625 --> 00:14:15,305 you haven't checked out Opus Pro, 190 00:14:15,305 --> 00:14:19,895 which makes this process really easy and I'll shove my affiliate link into 191 00:14:19,895 --> 00:14:24,995 the show notes because I think it needs to be part of the arsenal of tools 192 00:14:24,995 --> 00:14:27,225 that you need in today's creator world. 193 00:14:27,845 --> 00:14:32,625 And I think then there's also tools that can help you with research or 194 00:14:32,655 --> 00:14:37,185 obviously meeting summaries are out there but, and you can use them for content. 195 00:14:37,575 --> 00:14:40,215 But also how are you gonna organise your content? 196 00:14:40,265 --> 00:14:46,198 I think they're the things or types of topics that if you just pick one, right? 197 00:14:46,198 --> 00:14:47,678 Just one. 198 00:14:47,881 --> 00:14:51,971 Just breathe in, breathe out, and make this happen over the next three months. 199 00:14:52,021 --> 00:14:56,131 And unrealistic timelines are the thing that's probably gonna kill most 200 00:14:56,131 --> 00:14:58,321 people because you think it's so easy. 201 00:14:58,351 --> 00:15:01,091 Everybody else appears to have this under control. 202 00:15:01,611 --> 00:15:05,011 Yeah, I'm telling you in the conversations that I had I'm 203 00:15:05,011 --> 00:15:06,971 not so sure that's the case. 204 00:15:12,308 --> 00:15:16,698 If I had to wrap up the podcast episode today and talk 205 00:15:16,698 --> 00:15:18,898 about what surprised me most, 206 00:15:19,568 --> 00:15:25,468 what surprised me most is that a lot of the talks went back to fundamentals, 207 00:15:25,648 --> 00:15:30,888 back to getting strategy first, back to things like authenticity, 208 00:15:30,928 --> 00:15:32,898 back to things like building trust. 209 00:15:33,338 --> 00:15:37,368 I don't think, marketers, that there is anything new right now in 210 00:15:37,368 --> 00:15:39,248 marketing that you missed out on. 211 00:15:39,588 --> 00:15:43,978 Every talk was about getting back to fundamentals because it's like that whole 212 00:15:43,978 --> 00:15:46,438 concept of putting icing on a mud cake. 213 00:15:47,008 --> 00:15:52,358 If you don't get the base built right and you try and use AI to make 214 00:15:52,358 --> 00:15:57,458 up for that, you just get exposed quickly, and you go back further 215 00:15:57,648 --> 00:16:01,568 faster than any of your peers that maybe aren't even trying these things. 216 00:16:01,911 --> 00:16:08,458 The best marketers that I met at the conference were strategic thinkers. 217 00:16:09,048 --> 00:16:13,328 They were looking for one piece of the puzzle or answers to something 218 00:16:13,328 --> 00:16:17,428 within their business that they could take back, rather than, as 219 00:16:17,498 --> 00:16:20,488 some other people described it, drinking from the fire hydrant. 220 00:16:20,528 --> 00:16:23,888 Honestly, there is so much information in those three days 221 00:16:24,238 --> 00:16:27,658 that I'm not sure that you could take it all in, and you certainly 222 00:16:27,658 --> 00:16:29,328 couldn't go away and implement it. 223 00:16:29,388 --> 00:16:35,208 So those that don't chase trends, those that look for, "How can what I'm learning 224 00:16:35,318 --> 00:16:39,908 build on the strategy that I've already built?" Those that are open to realising 225 00:16:39,908 --> 00:16:42,538 that they've drifted off course and need to go back and course-correct, 226 00:16:42,538 --> 00:16:46,788 they're the best marketers that I think are gonna have the most success. 227 00:16:47,238 --> 00:16:52,618 And from that perspective, I challenge you listeners this week to go back... 228 00:16:52,698 --> 00:16:58,168 And this is a example of one of the tasks that I gave in my presentation. 229 00:16:58,515 --> 00:17:03,355 Go back to your profile or to your Company Page and ask somebody else who 230 00:17:03,355 --> 00:17:08,705 doesn't work closely with you, give them 10 seconds, set a timer, and ask them 231 00:17:08,765 --> 00:17:13,805 to come up with what you do, who you do it for, and what makes you different. 232 00:17:14,245 --> 00:17:20,470 Even if they can answer one of those three things, you're way out in front And 233 00:17:20,510 --> 00:17:25,430 it was so fun to talk to a group of page admins after my presentation who asked 234 00:17:25,430 --> 00:17:27,310 me to do that on each of their Pages. 235 00:17:27,623 --> 00:17:32,193 And what we realised was their Pages were the most bland version of 236 00:17:32,193 --> 00:17:34,103 what their businesses had achieved. 237 00:17:34,713 --> 00:17:38,223 So if you discover the same thing, you know what you need to fix. 238 00:17:38,363 --> 00:17:40,503 If you need help, you know where to find me. 239 00:17:40,943 --> 00:17:45,330 But ultimately, marketers that are listening to this, the thing that you 240 00:17:45,330 --> 00:17:53,383 need to know is getting back to strategy and as part of that clarity is the thing 241 00:17:53,763 --> 00:17:58,223 that is the most important lesson that I took away from Social Media Marketing 242 00:17:58,223 --> 00:18:02,543 World and the one that I think is going to improve your results on LinkedIn 243 00:18:02,913 --> 00:18:07,493 more than any other thing that you'll learn this year, more than any algorithm 244 00:18:07,493 --> 00:18:10,203 report, more than any research report. 245 00:18:10,590 --> 00:18:13,843 Get back to strategy and in turn clarity. 246 00:18:14,096 --> 00:18:15,466 Until next week, cheers.