Today's Guide to the Marketing Jungle from Social Media Examiner... | Presented by |  |
It's National Puzzle Day, Alluser! Crosswords, escape rooms, sudoku… they all count!
In today's edition:
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YouTube ad opp
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LinkedIn Top Voices badge changes
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🗞️ Additional industry news from Meta, X, and more
Have your marketing messages started to underperform? Is your message clear or confusing?
Success in marketing comes down to clarity and storytelling, not just product quality.
Even if your product is technically superior, customers will likely choose an inferior product if that brand is better at communicating its value.
3 Ways to Analyze Your Message for Clarity
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Is your language too clever?
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Are you using industry jargon instead of the words your customers use?
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Did you forget to actually talk about how your product solves a problem?
You know where to adjust your messaging if you answered yes to any of these questions!
Today's tip was inspired by Dr. JJ Peterson, a featured speaker at Social Media Marketing World.
These Marketing Visionaries Can Help Transform Your Business, Alluser!
Want to meet 4 marketers who are pushing the boundaries of what's possible with AI, viral videos, and social media? Great news! They will be keynote speakers at Social Media Marketing World 2025.
They include:
✨ A marketing futurist who predicts industry shifts before they happen
✨ A viral video expert who's helped countless brands reach millions
✨ An Instagram specialist whose AI strategies are revolutionizing content creation
✨ A YouTube sensation whose strategies have generated over 350 million views
"The keynote speakers had incredibly valuable information on the future of marketing. Worth the price of admission alone!" said attendee Sarah Heilbronner.
Want to know how these industry leaders can help prepare you for what's coming next in marketing?
Tell me more about the keynote speakers.
Creating AI Avatars: How to Create Video Clones for Business
For many business owners and marketers, the barriers to consistent video content creation are clear: lack of time, uncertainty about what to say, and discomfort in front of the camera. Despite its growing importance across all digital platforms, these obstacles prevent countless businesses from leveraging video in their marketing.
AI video avatars represent a revolutionary approach to video content creation. Unlike traditional video production, which requires constant recording sessions, these avatars allow you to create a single digital version of yourself that looks, sounds and moves exactly like you.
You then feed your avatar scripts to produce all the marketing videos you need!
5 Ways to Use an AI Video Avatar in Your Marketing
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Content Creation at Scale: Businesses can produce large volumes of video content without the time-consuming process of traditional recording. One of Roche's clients is creating 800 minutes (approximately 12 hours) of course content using their avatar, a task that traditionally would take weeks or months to accomplish.
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Podcast Visualization: For audio-only podcasters, AI avatars offer a way to create video content without the need for constant video recording. "If you're a podcaster and you're not doing the video, you're missing out on that opportunity...to be heard by a wider audience," Roche notes.
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Interactive Customer Service: Some businesses are implementing interactive avatar experiences on their websites, where AI-powered versions of company representatives can answer customer questions in real time.
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Welcome Videos and Customer Communications: Companies are using avatars for personalized welcome messages and customer communications, including MMS marketing campaigns that deliver video messages instead of traditional text.
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Course Content Creation: Educators and trainers use avatars to create extensive educational content without the need for marathon recording sessions.
Ready to get started?
Record Your Training Video
The quality of your AI avatar depends heavily on the quality of the initial training video you provide:
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Use a 4K camera for optimal quality and shoot your video in a well-lit area.
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Position the camera approximately two feet away from yourself, and record in a horizontal orientation to allow for vertical cropping later.
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Record while seated rather than standing.
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Choose a natural environment that matches your typical content setting.
Now, let's talk about you in front of the camera.
While two minutes is the minimum requirement for your recording, longer recordings can provide more natural movements and expressions for the AI to work with. These tips will help you deliver the best training video possible.
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Avoid scripted reading during the training video. Instead, speak naturally about your business or passions. Imagine someone has asked you, "Tell me about your business. Why do you do what you do?"
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Minimize dramatic hand gestures because they will appear in your generated content and can create awkward moments in your video.
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Maintain steady eye contact with the camera. While technology exists to fix eye movement, Roche prefers natural eye contact for more authentic results.
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Stay relaxed and natural. Avoid nervous laughter or excessive smiling unless you want these expressions in your generated content. "The more relaxed you are, the better the avatar," Roche advises.
Upload Your Training Video to HeyGen
Providing what Roche considers the best visual technology currently available, HeyGen creates and renders the visual portion of your avatar based on your training video.
Develop Your Voice Model in ElevenLabs
ElevenLabs represents the gold standard in voice cloning technology, offering superior control over voice characteristics.
It requires just two minutes of voice recording for initial training, allows for fine-tuning of tonation and cadence, and lets you create multiple voice variations such as excited (for an event promo video) or calm (for a course video).
Now, connect HeyGen and ElevenLabs via the API to exercise enhanced control of the marketing videos you render by using different voice variations for different content types or adjusting your tonation based on content requirements.
Today's advice provided with insights from Aoife Roche, a featured guest on the AI Explored podcast.
Can't Attend Social Media Marketing World in Person?
If joining thousands of marketers from March 30 to April 1 in San Diego isn't in the cards for you, don't worry. The conference comes to you with a Virtual Ticket.
Your Virtual Ticket grants you access to ALL of the conference content—including the sessions, keynotes, and the extra day of workshops—all from the comfort of your home or office. Plus, you can stream the keynotes and sessions in real time.
Ready to skip the crowds and have a full 365 days to review and implement the incredible content from Social Media Marketing World?
Yes, I want to stream live and get the recordings.
LinkedIn Top Voice Blue Badge: The program now has a six-month expiration period, replacing the previous indefinite allocation. Badge renewal requires meeting core requirements: consistent content creation, high-quality contributions, professional insights, and adherence to LinkedIn's policies. Source: Social Media Today
Meta AI Personalization Features: The company began implementing memory capabilities for Meta AI in one-on-one chats on WhatsApp and Messenger at the end of last year. Users can explicitly tell Meta AI to remember information about them, or the AI can learn details through conversation context. The memory feature is being launched for Meta AI on Facebook, Messenger, and WhatsApp for iOS and Android users in the US and Canada. Meta AI will only store memories from individual conversations, not group chats, and users can delete stored information at any time. The company is also expanding personalization across Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram by leveraging user profile data and content interaction history. This enhanced personalization allows Meta AI to provide tailored recommendations based on factors like location, viewing history, and family information. The new personalization features are currently rolling out to users in the US and Canada. Source: Meta
X/Visa Payments Partnership: X announced a partnership with Visa to provide financial services, marking progress toward Musk's vision of creating an "everything app." According to CEO Linda Yaccarino's announcement on Tuesday, the company will launch X Money Account, enabling peer-to-peer payments from debit cards and bank transfers. The service will be available later in 2025, with Yaccarino indicating more X Money announcements this year. Source: New York Times
YouTube Unskippable Ads Issue: The company denies intentionally serving extremely long unskippable ads, suggesting that ad blockers may be causing playback distortions that result in abnormal ad experiences. Google acknowledges monitoring for ad blocker usage and may disable video playback as a last resort for persistent ad block users. This stance reflects YouTube's broader strategy to discourage ad blocking while maintaining specific limitations on ad duration across different platforms. Source: Android Authority
YouTube Cost-Per-Hour (CPH) Masthead Advertising: The experiment allows brands to purchase exclusive Masthead ad space across all platforms for specific hourly blocks. This new option supplements the existing CPM Masthead offering, giving advertisers full share of voice during critical timeframes. The hourly purchase option covers desktop, mobile, connected TV, and tablet devices, targeting advertisers planning product launches, time-sensitive announcements, and cultural moment marketing. While pricing details aren't public, the flat hourly rate model provides more predictable budgeting than impression-based pricing. Interested advertisers need to contact their YouTube representative to access CPH Masthead purchases. Source: Search Engine Land
What Did You Think of Today's Newsletter?
Did You Know?
When Sesame Street premiered in 1969, Oscar the Grouch was orange, not green. By the second season, he turned green, a change explained by Oscar as a result of "vacationing in a swamp."
Michael Stelzner, Founder and CEO
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