Howdy,

Another day, another digital marketing news flash!

• Google is expanding its “Preferred Sources” feature from News to AI Overviews and AI Mode responses. This expansion will allow users to see more links from Preferred Sources they select. Click-through Rates on Preferred Sources are reportedly double that of other links. But there are questions on the metrics and whether these clicks are more valuable. Here’s Google’s Announcement and their Guide for how it works.

• ChatGPT increased the number of links to brands in its responses, by 150%, actually. Around 60% of this traffic is landing on brand homepages specifically, but there is also a 24% lift in pageviews per visit and 11% uplift in time on site. It’s another reason you should be examining branded keyworded traffic in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools for signs of AI influence on traffic.

• Who is buying ads on your brand’s ChatGPT traffic? See how you can check it manually via SEJ. (This is a sponsored post from AdRadar, so if you’d rather use their tool, that is an option as well.)

• Google Search Quality Raters Guidelines — it isn’t a guide for search rankings but a guide for what Google wants to rank in search results. In Google-ese, they say “these guidelines are what are used by our search raters to help evaluate the performance of our various search ranking systems, and their ratings don’t directly influence ranking.” It’s a little confusing, but they recommend it’s worth a read if you’re interested. 🤷‍♀️

• “Education around AI can’t just mean teaching people HOW to use it. It has to mean teaching people when NOT to use it. And WHY.” Ann Handley says it so articulately. For marketers and creators, knowing when to use AI is the boundary between successful, unique campaigns and blending into the crowd.

• Two stories related to AI and jobs: 63% of Workers Admit to Exaggerating AI Skills; the second quotes OpenAI’S Altman as saying “AI unlikely to lead to ‘jobs apocalypse'” saying that human interaction in many roles limits how far AI can replace workers. So, is the AI jobs glass half empty or half full?

• Social media managers deserve our appreciation. 👏 Here’s why from social media consultant  extraordinaire, Jon-Stephen Stansel.

• Bluesky is jumping on the long-form content bandwagon through an integration with Standard.site. Definitely worth checking out if Bluesky is in your social strategy. 

• Spotify is allowing users to clip parts of podcasts for sharing, which I don’t need to explain how awesome this is for marketers supporting podcasts!

Their goal is simple. Plant more trees. One Tree Planted is a global organization focused on reforestation in North America, Latin America, Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Pacific. Every dollar supports the planting of trees. Check them out: One Tree Planted.

🪴 It’s time. That pre-summer sun is calling to your little indoor plant on the windowsill, so, naturally, you plop her outside to be her natural self. 

Two days later, you check on your little buddy and those top leaves are white and crackly. (Noooo.)

Turns out, indoor plant leaves can get “sunburned” as they are grilled in a heat under which they are not accustomed (as Lira the lemon tree taught me). The key is to acclimate them or “harden them off” by starting with a few hours outside and gradually increasing the time over a week.

Think about this. How many times do we jump into something new and expect ourselves to be totally okay? Then, you’re freaking out because you forgot where you put your phone for the umteenth time this week, you left your lunch (tuna salad) in your car to cook, and you can’t remember if the person you are talking to is named Sandra or Sally.

When we don’t give ourselves space to process change, we can “sunburn our leaves.” Can you dedicate time in another aspect of your life to unwind? Get lost in conversation, carve time for a hobby, or get more rest (highly recommended for everyone). 

Like Lira, we aren’t perfectly adaptable, so try acclimating instead. 🙂

Have a wonderful rest of your week!

Natalie

For years, my mom thought the B-52s sang, “Henry” instead of “Tin Roof — rusted” in their party song staple, “Love Shack”. (Don’t ask me how… I’m flummoxed myself.)

But anyway, here are the most popular misheard song lyrics.