Jay Schwedelson: We are back for What's Up This Week from the Do This Not That podcast, and there is a lot going on this week, so let's jump into it. So Meta just now released a new standalone app. You know, Meta owns Instagram and WhatsApp and Facebook and all that. Well, now they have another app called Forum.

Jay Schwedelson: If you're in the United States, you can go download this right now, and it's also rolling out to other regions as we speak. But Forum is essentially a separate app just for group discussions. It's bringing together all of the groups that a user's already a member of on Facebook, but it's bringing it into its own app.

Jay Schwedelson: You're gonna be able to join other groups. And the reason they're doing this is really two basic reasons. Number one, groups are wildly popular. I will tell you right now on Facebook, the thing that I use ninety percent of the time on Facebook are the groups. But then the other thing is that, you know, Reddit has really exploded, and this is a go after Reddit motion by Meta big time.

Jay Schwedelson: And so Forum is a standalone app that isolates your Facebook groups. It is... I'm excited for this. Uh, you can download it right now. So that is a very, very cool thing that has rolled out. So some of the other things that have rolled out, uh, to everybody is something on LinkedIn called LinkedIn Cross Check.

Jay Schwedelson: Have you tried this? If you don't know where to find it, just Google LinkedIn Cross Check. Now, what it is, it's this tool within LinkedIn where you can put in anything you would normally ask any of the AI tools. Like if you were gonna ask, you know, ChatGPT something, or Claude or Gemini or whatever, and you put it in, and then it will simultaneously in front of you run the results across multiple tools at one time, showing you what the different tools' outputs and, and answers to your questions are right in front of you, which is kinda useful, kinda cool.

Jay Schwedelson: But the thing that I find really useful is actually not where it's giving you these outputs of what the different tools are showing you. They have something on there called the Cross Check Leaderboard, and they have a leaderboard of what AI tools everybody is using and which models of the AI tools.

Jay Schwedelson: 'Cause when you go on, for example, Claude, there's different models, LLM models that you could be using to make your queries. So it's showing you, uh, which are the most popular in real time. But the thing that's actually pretty interesting is that- It lets you, um, sort it by industry. So overall, and this is data according to LinkedIn itself.

Jay Schwedelson: So what do you think the number one tool is, AI tool and model that's being used by LinkedIn users? Uh, it's actually Claude. So the top three spots on this, uh, Link-- what, what AI tools everybody's using according to LinkedIn in real time, the top three are different models from Claude, and then ChatGPT and OpenAI is fourth.

Jay Schwedelson: But then you can go ahead and you can sort it by different industries. So for example, if you sort it by education only, ChatGPT is the number one, uh, tool. So you can check that out. If you want the URL, it's linkedin.com/labs/cross-check. So that's kinda cool Something going on in the world of email marketing, which, uh, is really, really a big, big thing that's we're gonna be all talking about in the next 12 months, is the importance of people replying to your promotional emails.

Jay Schwedelson: So now we're not just talking about you send out a sales-oriented email and say, "Hey, reply back to me, we'll set up a call." But now a lot of brands are starting to set up that their promotional emails are asking for people to reply to the email to actually activate something. So ProspectBase came out with some new data that shows that emails that ask for replies have a 3X more engagement than those that don't.

Jay Schwedelson: And what do we mean by ask for replies? Okay, so imagine a promotional email went out and said, uh, "Reply yes if you want the discount. Reply guide if you want the guide." And this is what a lot of the big brands are starting to move towards. And the reason they're moving towards it is, is because of these stats that we just came out with from World Data Research.

Jay Schwedelson: So first on the business side, business-to-business brands incorporating at least one reply-driven call to action every other week, saw an 18% improvement in primary inbox placement over a 90-day period. And on the consumer side, brands that are using a reply-based, basically zero-party data collection motion, so, you know, reply, uh, uh, yes if you want the discount, saw a 14% increase in inbox placement over that same 90-day period.

Jay Schwedelson: So brands like Liquid Death are doing this, AppSumo, Notion, Morning Brew, they're all doing this, where it's hit reply and let me, uh, tell me more. Hit reply with the word, uh, guide and I'll send it. Whatever it is. And the reason that brands are doing this is that the number one signal now for Outlook and Gmail and Yahoo is the reply rate.

Jay Schwedelson: If you can get individuals who reply to your emails, this is actually causing all the different email providers to wanna leave you in the inbox at a much, much higher rate than any other action somebody, uh, can take. And now almost every major email sending platform can handle replies, and then you can set up automations to reply to those automations.

Jay Schwedelson: So if you're not really thinking about replies, I think you're leaving something on the table All right, before we get to completely useless information, I want you to know that this podcast is sponsored by CallRail. Now, CallRail is awesome. They're not just about calls. They help 220,000 businesses understand their attribution.

Jay Schwedelson: We use CallRail, and it has changed the game for us in understanding when people fill out the forms where our, our marketing spend, if it's working for any conversations that we have, and they have an amazing free trial. If you go to callrail.com/dothis, callrail.com/dothis, you can check them out for free.

Jay Schwedelson: They are helping over 200,000 businesses. You gotta check them out. If attribution matters to your company, check them out. All right, let's get into useless information. Well, you're not ready for it, but you should be. Love Island USA premieres on June 2nd. Now, you're like, "I don't watch Love Island. I don't care about Love Island."

Jay Schwedelson: But here's the deal. It is going to take over the brains of every young person in this country. So Love Island is a reality show on Peacock, and here's the deal. It premieres June 2nd at 9:00 PM, and Ariana Madix is back as the host. Now, here's why it's a big deal to everybody. So last season, Love Island became Peacock's most-watched original reality season.

Jay Schwedelson: It pulled in over 18 billion streaming minutes, okay? And it generated almost 2 billion views on TikTok. Now, here's the reason it matters. The ad and sponsorship demand for this season is up over 73% versus last year. All right? That is bonkers. If you lean into this, it's gonna be a good thing. Now, should you watch this show?

Jay Schwedelson: Here is the problem with this show. It is ridiculous, and I mean, I watch every reality show on the planet. Every single one. This one is hard for me to watch because, number one, it's ridiculous, but number two, okay, it is on like five days a week. I think the only day it's not on is Wednesdays, and it's like an hour long each time.

Jay Schwedelson: I cannot-- I can barely keep up with anything that comes out once a week. Something comes out with four or five times a week for an hour? I don't like talk to my wife and kids for four or five times a week for an hour. That is crazy amount of content. All right? So, um, but get ready for it because it's coming.

Jay Schwedelson: It's gonna take over your feeds. It's gonna take over people's brains all summer long, and I probably will watch it 'cause I have no life whatsoever. And, um, listen, you wanna do me a favor? The way that this podcast circulates is if you follow the show, you leave a comment on Spotify, on Apple, on whatever, you would be my best friend, and that's really important to nobody.

Jay Schwedelson: So yeah, check you later.