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Escape the Feed

When I’m interviewing someone or talking to someone looking to break into marketing, I always ask if they have any go to sources for marketing news / insights / tips & tricks, etc.

Typically the answer is some form of feed.

“I scroll LinkedIn”
or
“TikTok shows me a lot”
or
“I follow a lot of marketing people on Instagram”

I’m never impressed by this.

My advice, find a few blogs / sites / newsletters related to your role and/or area of interest and subscribe in a way that there isn’t an algorithm between you and the most recent update.

Email is good. RSS* is my preferred method.

Keep feeds for discovery and entertainment.
Create a space you control for learning.
Cultivate your own curious corner.

*RSS Tools

  • Newsblur gives you an email address to use so you can get newsletters and RSS feeds in one place
  • feeeed gives you a more social feed feel
  • Feedly is easy (I no longer use it)
  • Tapestry goes beyond just RSS, like a custom, cross-platform feed
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Do you need to do the whole thing? Or can you just do the part you’re particularly good at as part of a team?

Is growing your list of offerings the right move? Or would you be better served by subtracting—focusing on the most popular / what works the best?

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People feel increased prices long before potential reshoring employment shifts from tariffs, these 3 headlines could sour sentiment for the executive branch:

Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

Kickstarter Introduces ‘Tariff Manager Tool’ to Add Charges to Already Fully Funded Projects

Temu adds ‘import charges’ of about 145% after Trump tariffs, more than doubling price of many items

Brands are buckling up for a rough year, especially those importing from China.

This could open the door for more messaging opportunities as major platforms make the impact of tariffs plain to shoppers.

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Eventually all large platforms become commerce platforms

When ChatGPT users search for products, the chatbot will now offer a few recommendations, present images and reviews for those items, and include direct links to web pages where users can buy the products.

The ChatGPT search update is part of OpenAI’s effort to compete with rival Google by creating a better, more personalized experience to find products and information on the internet.

Everyone is coming for Google these days.

via TechCrunch

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Perplexity wants to be Google, but based in AI vs. traditional search.

From TechCrunch:

“That’s kind of one of the other reasons we wanted to build a browser, is we want to get data even outside the app to better understand you,” [CEO Aravind] Srinivas said. “Because some of the prompts that people do in these AIs is purely work-related. It’s not like that’s personal.”

This aligns with the company’s vision and is not a recent pivot, but you can tell they smell blood in the water with Google’s regulatory woes.