Hey 👋

Welcome to Neighbourhood Post

Don’t call it a comeback… but did you miss me?

We took a few weeks off to focus on other things (more on that soon…) but your friendly neighbourhood postman is back, ready to deliver.

And I’m picking up where I left off, ruminating on the rapid reshaping of the marketing landscape at the hands of our old adversary, AI.

Let’s get to it…

AI and digital, in three conversations 💬

Are you bored of conversations about AI?

I kind of am. 🫠

It feels like everything that needs to be said has been said.

So rather than the same boring chat, let me share 3 recent conversations that gave me a really clear view of where we’re at.

Those conversations are:

1. “The Sloppening” ⚰️
2. The competitive advantage 🏆
3. The now and not yet 🔮

The first conversation was sparked when someone sent me this post – titled “The Sloppening”.

It warns of the overwhelming spread of low-quality, AI-generated content.

(You should read the whole thing)

It’s fairly damning: “We’ve sloptimised ourselves into oblivion”

But it’s also clear: “AI didn’t break things, we did.”

We’re the pilot, AI is the plane.

Applying marketing expertise and strategy is crucial.

As a digital agency, we’re developing an approach that gets the most out of AI content generation without losing authenticity and authority.

It’s a framework designed to safeguard your brand from the pitfalls of AI-generated content, while keeping innovation and creativity at the core of your strategy.

Spoiler; more often than not it points towards original creativity over AI slop.

Which leads me to the second conversation…

Someone asked me (in a half-polite way):

“Anyone can use AI to create a social media strategy, a monthly schedule, and a month’s worth of graphics and captions in 5 minutes. So why shouldn’t I?”

My answer was easy.

“You shouldn’t, because everyone can.”

When it comes to digital marketing, people wrongly position AI as the clear competitive advantage.

But if everyone has access to the competitive advantage, it’s not really an advantage, is it? In fact it’s the exact opposite – the competitive disadvantage.

In a world of slop, you gain ground by pursuing what AI hasn’t nailed yet;

100% connection, 100% creativity, 100% authenticity.

Supplement it with AI, but start with the human.

It sounds like I’m a skeptic in complete denial.

But that’s where the third conversation comes in:

“One day AI will take all of our jobs, no one will work and the government will have to fund universal salaries for everyone.”

It’s true. AI will take 80% of all jobs that don’t require manual labour (those are for the robots to take.)

When that happens is less clear.

Probably not before 2050, but who knows?

At the moment we’re living in the now and not yet.

We know the way things are going, and I’m not naive enough to think that very soon AI won’t be producing slop, but content that is 100% creative and 100% authentic.

But that moment is not today, and we shouldn’t pretend it is just because we can all turn ourselves into Disney Pixar characters at the drop of a prompt.

Here’s ours btw (sorry Matt and Mark):

We’re prioritising how to get the most out of AI now, and also preparing for future developments.

If you want to do the same, it looks like two things:

• Become an AI-Augmented Marketer – Learn AI tools like ChatGPT, MidJourney, and AI-driven analytics.
• Stay ahead of AI developments, ethics & regulation – know what’s here, what’s coming and what won’t stay.

That’s all for today.

What do you think, more AI or less AI in future newsletters? I wouldn’t be offended either way:

See you next week.

✌️

Do you want to know the biggest secret of innovation?

There’s nothing new under the sun.

When you realise that even the most creative and novel ideas can be linked to a few sources of inspiration, innovation becomes a lot easier.

It’s not plucking ideas out of thin air, it’s about becoming a student of the game and studying what’s out there already.

We’re constantly taking inspiration from lots of places.

This week on Instagram, we shared four of our favourite social content techniques.

What do you mean you don’t follow us on Instagram?

Fix that right 👉 here 👈

Why have you scrolled past without following us?

👉 Last chance 👈

If video’s your thing you can watch it here.

If words are your thing let me share four ideas:

#1 – Consider audio

While it’s true that around 70% of users watch Reels with their volume on zero, 30% of users are listening in.

So how do you use audio to stop those 30% scrolling?

Suri are the toothbrush brand your favourite influencers are using.

They know how to do social well, and they use audio effects to grab your attention.

It doesn’t have to be complicated; you can use their click sound to roll through your own collection of photos.

It worked on Lillie, it was her favourite post recommendation

#2 – Make engagement easy

Getting people to comment on social posts is really hard.

Here are three ways to make it happen:

• Make it easy – reduce the time people have to actually think about their answer
• Use humour – we sometimes want to go deep, but lighthearted, funny questions get more responses.
• Relate it to the everyday – people don’t want to answer questions about your product/service/offering. Make it about them.

Jake’s favourite post does all three.

#3 – Upgrade your carousels

6 months ago a “photo dump” carousel was best practice – adding multiple unedited photos to a post.

As social always does, things have moved on.

Try adding interactive elements to your carousels – overlay texts and GIFs, combine photos, graphics and videos.

The more time people spend flicking through, the more the algorithm will favour you.

Indi found the perfect example.

#4 – Optimise for shares

This one is the hardest.

But we know one of the main factors the algorithm favours is how many times your post is shared via DM to another individual.

You’ve probably seen the “Your third @ owes you a holiday” type posts.

That’s a direct attempt to increase the number of shares.

Try thinking creatively – how could you stretch your brand and tone of voice a little to allow you to come up with your own ideas.

Joe’s two examples (one and two) are probably out of your brands reach (!) but start there and work backwards.

—

There we go, some ideas for you to be thinking about.

And if you’ve got this far and still aren’t following us on Instagram,

👉 shame on you 👈

✌️