Edition 109. A New Yorker moves to Texas. Then, for the first time in 53 years, the Knicks win the NBA championship. Over the San Antonio Spurs. The irony is personal. But the only allegiance I’m pledging right now? The off-season. For athletes, championships are won in the off-season. For business owners, same. ’Tis the season to clean our email lists, build the flows, tighten the brand story, and get the email channel ready. Because Q4 will be here faster than I can hop a plane back to New...
8 days ago • 1 min read
Edition 108. 5 brand bytes to inform and inspire you this week: 🎩 Owner, operator, creator (all the hats) Yunus E., Pexels / Edit by Shavaun If you’re feeling like your entrepreneurial load keeps expanding, it is. A new report says 73% of small business owners globally identify as content creators, to some degree. The modern biz owner is part marketer, media team, customer service, and systems operator. AI is helping, but the bigger shift is this: content is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s how...
15 days ago • 2 min read
Edition 107. 5 brand bytes to inform and inspire you this week: 🔁 Amazon’s change of plans Amazon The consumer market will have lots of motion come end of June: World Cup, Fourth of July, summer’s start. So, Amazon said: change of plans. After five years in July, Prime Day is moving back to June for the *first time* since 2021. Mark June 23–26, if you’re shopping. Or, run your own promo. Prime Day tends to put consumers in an online spending mood. ⚽ World Cup and the brand playground...
22 days ago • 2 min read
Edition 106. AI-ready websites, Dick’s AI coach, my 32-second ChatGPT referral, and the chatbot your site might need next. 5 brand bytes to inform and inspire you this week: 💊 Olly rewrites for AI-search Olly Curious shoppers are prompting chatbots, not just Google. When they ask for “the best sleep supplement,” Olly wants to be front of the line. With product discovery happening through LLM prompts, shopping behavior is shifting fast: less homepage wandering, more direct AI referral to the...
29 days ago • 2 min read
Edition 105. I interrupt our regular five-byte format with one short (but true) story: the boundary that became a booking inquiry. It’s a holiday weekend, so this one’s shorter on purpose. The message is the format: protect your time. More *time* for 10K steps this long weekend. Holiday weekends give us unofficial permission to unplug. But the real test usually comes on a random Thursday, when the ask sounds harmless. Here’s what happened... A couple of days ago, an old colleague reached out...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Edition 104. Instagram wants carousels to say more, and these two brands are making the smart home a ‘smarter shop.’ 5 brand bytes to inform and inspire you this week: ✍️ More carousel-caption control Instagram is testing captions for each individual carousel slide. It’s a feature once reserved for paid carousel ads (which I often design for clients). I noticed it firsthand while posting for Spoken Flames this week. Try it and you’ll see. You now get the option: one caption for the whole...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Edition 103. Social media wants TV shows, TikTok Shop’s in its QVC era, and your website may need to hit ‘play’ next. 5 brand bytes to inform and inspire you this week: 📺 The TV-ification of social media Pretty Little Marketer Brands aren’t just posting content. They’re building sitcoms, sketch series, dating-show formats and character-led worlds for Instagram and TikTok. It’s the “TV-ification of social media.” Meaning, a brand win on social isn’t an ad pretending to entertain. It’s an...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Edition 102. Algorithm shifts, content scores, and why your brand assets on paid social might need more range than polish. 5 brand bytes to inform and inspire you this week: 1. The algorithm switch up Meta guidelines for what’s “original.” The algorithm changed (again). But this one’s good news if you create original content for your personal or brand page on Instagram. What switched? Instagram is expanding its protection of original content and rules for what gets defined as “original.” “We...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Edition 101. AI gets love from small businesses, Heinz makes a stretch for game day, and HubSpot gives us a new marketing “loop” to think through. 5 brand bytes to inform and inspire you this week: 1. 81% are excited about AI, but... Inc. / Getty New survey data, in partnership with PayPal and Google, shows that 81% of small business owners are “excited about AI,” but only 47% use it daily. Translation: we’re AI-curious, but not fully AI-committed. Small businesses are using it where the...
2 months ago • 2 min read