3 Truths and AI

4 REAL-LIFE LESSONS ABOUT DIGITAL ADOPTION

This week Junction's wrapping up several really interesting a projects with even more fascinating businesses, so I couldn't help but use this space to share some of the things we've learned from working with them, because I believe these lessons can apply to just about everyone.

You may remember earlier this year we announced that we were certified as official advisors in the Canadian Digital Adoption Program. It's a grant that matches small and medium businesses with consultants to build their digital capacity, creating stronger businesses and better customer experiences.

In our first flight of projects, the clients ranged from one of BC's longest-running adventure tour companies, to a farm that has grown to include a restaurant, hotel, thriving e-commerce shop, and even its very own cidery. Each partner has been incredible to work with, and each project allowed us to dig into new and exciting challenges. Here are just a few of the simple lessons that are already creating major impacts:

1. The most valuable audience is the one that already knows you. In several cases, our partners were doing an excellent job of posting content, running ads, and generally introducing themselves to the world. Where we've found huge opportunities for immediate gains is in the way that they leverage technology to continue that high quality experience throughout, and beyond the purchase. That can look like simple CRM implementations, email automation, and processes that help to earn reviews and referrals.
2. Most of us are spreading ourselves thin online. There are so many channels, tactics, and choices for where to spend our time and resources that we can all find ourselves doing a little of this and a little of that. In our work we've found that every business has one (or maybe two) channels that are delivering significantly more value than the rest, so the best thing to do is maximize that channel before moving on to any new shiny thing.
3. The strongest internal processes are the simplest. As businesses grow, we tend to add on a piece of software here and an app there. Each one on its own may be a fantastic piece of technology, but together they can create an expensive, redundant mess that causes more problems than it solves. Every once in a while it's important to look at all of the tech that we're using and ask whether all of the various pieces are really serving us, and which would actually make our lives easier by leaving.
4. ChatGPT is a super power. The most common limitation for most marketers and owners is time. We all have lots of ideas for blog posts, email newsletters, SEO-friendly content, sales materials, training guides, and internal communications, but we don't have the time to create them. We've been helping our partners to 10X their productivity with easy-to-use AI tools and prompt patterns.

The best part is that the program is just getting started. Right now we're in the process of booking our next set of projects, so if you think your business could benefit from accelerating your own digital adoption, we'd love to hear about it — click the button below to book a 30-minute call, or reply to this email with any questions you have.

PS: Curious to know who those amazing partner businesses are and what they're up to? We recently shared specifics on our IG - @HeyJunction

SCHEDULE YOUR 30-MINUTE CHAT

HOW ARE THE BIG PLATFORMS DOING?

DIGGING FOR GOLD IN EARNINGS REPORTS

It's easy to speculate about what's going on at the major social media channels, but four times a year they (at least the publicly traded ones) are forced to open their books and give us a look at the real numbers when they publish their earnings data.

The TLDR for the latest period: it's a good time to be Meta. Here's what we learned:

Facebook hits 2.9 Billion Monthly Active Users

• Growth was driven almost entirely by Reels
• AI recommendations (especially on Reels) have driven a 24%+ increase in time spent on Instagram
• AI also improved Reels’ monetization efficiency, which grew 30%+ on Instagram and 40%+ on Facebook
• Quote from Zuck: "AI is literally going to touch every single one of our products and services in multiple ways"

Pinterest and Snachat are basically tied

• Pinterest = 463 million Monthly Active Users
• Snapchat = 383 million Daily Active Users
  • 350 million Snap users are using Spotlight, which is like their version of the For You Page

Spotify has more active users than either of them

• 515 million Monthly Active Users
• And yet, it rarely gets mentioned as a content or advertising channel

YouTube Shorts is getting 50 Billion Daily views

• That's more than all cable TV and streaming services combined
• It's up from 30 Billion this time last year

In non-public, privately owned social media news:

• TikTok claims to have 1.05 Billion Monthly Active Users
  • Note: In the past, TikTok has routinely under-reported its user data
• Twitter says that all advertisers will have to pay to get verified before running any ads
  • Note: These days Twitter says a lot of things, and follows through on few of them
• If you blinked, you might have missed BeReal
  • It's stagnated at 20 Million users, and is likely about to get relegated to obscure, once-hot social media status, along with Path, Ello, Yo and This

THE GA4 COUNTDOWN IS ON

WHETHER WE LIKE IT OR NOT

Google Analytics, as we know it, will cease to exist as of July 1st.

Google has been sounding the alarm now for about a year, but many websites still haven't made the switch, and will be in for a surprise when they log into their dashboards this summer.

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) looks, acts, and operates differently — in many ways better — than the classic version, which was called Universal Analytics (UA). When the switch happens, all historical data collected and stored in our UA accounts will be lost, and we'll have only the data that has been collected since the moment we activated GA4.

That's why they've been beating the drum so loudly, especially lately. If you are one of the many who haven't made the switch yet, don't worry, they've made it easy.

First, there's this support article that walks you through the process step-by-step.

In case you're not a "support article" person, Google has added a much less subtle prompt – the next time that you log into your GA account you'll see a full screen takeover with a doomsday-like clock that's counting down the seconds until your account will stop processing data, along with a button that takes you to your setup assistant.

Bottom line: If you've made the switch, then you're good, and your next task is to starting getting more familiar with the new toys in GA4. If you haven't yet, you're still good, but now is definitely the time to act.

NEED SOME INSPO?

YOUTUBE'S GOT YOU

The smart people over at YouTube have seen how popular content inspo accounts have become, and they're building their own.

These have been popping up all over TikTok, IG, and YouTube and they are creators who try to help us all stay on top of the incredibly fast pace of change in trending sounds, memes, content formats, and other ideas.

Their explicit goal is simply to tell us about what other people are posting, so that we can post into those trends, too.

YouTube's version lives on their blog and shouts out specific YouTubers who are posting stuff that we may all want to take inspiration from. It's a really good source of new ideas, and one that's definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Check out YouTube's Trends you Need to Know here

ELSEWHERE ON THE INTERNET

MORE NEWS TO KEEP YOU ON THE CUTTING EDGE

• It looks like Linkedin is no longer going to penalize posts that get edited after they're published
• A Twitter thread on how Fernando Alonso's TikTok went from 0 → 1M followers in 73 days (and why it's genius)
• Can open sourced social media platform ActivityPub save the Internet? Spoiler: We'll be digging into this in more detail next week

Written by Conner Galway, Junction Consulting