Neal Schaffer January 19, 2025 Hey Reader, While I was in Japan this past week, the news has been dominated by TikTok. Due to the timing of this newsletter, we now know that TikTok has been officially banned in the United States, and it is not appearing in the app store anymore. If you have the TikTok app you can still view your content and feed, but you cannot post or see any new content. Something I did not know is that CapCut, which is also owned by TikTok's owner, ByteDance, is in the...
10 days ago • 7 min read
Neal Schaffer January 11, 2025 Hey Reader, Hope you had a great start to the new year! I am actually at the airport on my way to Japan for a quick business trip, but wanted to make sure I get this out before I leave. For those of you who don't know, I live in Southern California, and it is sad sitting at the Los Angeles Airport and seeing all of the smoke billowing into the grey air above the mountains. My home in Orange County is quite removed from the fires, but we had our own experience...
18 days ago • 6 min read
Neal Schaffer January 03, 2025 Hey Reader, Happy New Year! Hope you had a chance to refresh over the holidays and are ready to take on a new year of changes in our constantly evolving world of digital marketing! If there was one phrase I want you to focus on this year it would be the topic of my latest podcast, The Democratization of Discoverability. Related to that phrase, if there was one keyword I want you to remember this year, it is a simple one: Output. With advances in generative AI,...
26 days ago • 7 min read
Neal Schaffer December 28, 2024 Hey Reader, And so another year ends... It's time to take a step back and be grateful for all that we have and accomplished in 2024. With a similar lens, we should also be looking forward on all of our dreams and goals for 2025 and constructing plans to make them happen. Just like going to a gym at the beginning of a year with passion to get back in shape or shed a few pounds (trust me, I'll be back exercising soon as well!), we should be approaching our...
about 1 month ago • 9 min read
Neal Schaffer December 20, 2024 Hey Reader, We are near the end of the year - only one more edition of this newsletter left for 2024! I want to share with you something that I have been thinking a lot about recently as we approach 2025. One of the famous quotes that I live by is "Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity." Which leads me to ask you: What do you plan to do differently in your business in 2025? This is something that...
about 1 month ago • 9 min read
Neal Schaffer December 13, 2024 Hey Reader, I want to share with you a true story of what happened to me this week as the future of generative AI and its relationship to content creation became forced me to make a quick decision about my future. Large language models rely on massive amounts of data, much of which raises questions about legality and quality. As AI evolves, there's growing concern about the scarcity of original content and the risk of AI models cannibalizing themselves by...
about 2 months ago • 8 min read
Neal Schaffer December 06, 2024 Hey Reader, As we wind down the year, I feel that the pace of business has simply gotten faster, especially since the introduction of Generative AI. I feel we are all chasing many shiny objects and trying to do too much just to stay afloat. While I am a fan of a quarterly approach to marketing and business activities, I think its time to shorten that view into monthly and weekly approaches. In fact, a topic for a future podcast episode I plan to record is the...
about 2 months ago • 6 min read
Neal Schaffer November 29, 2024 Hey Reader, I am about to record my next podcast on the topic of doing a marketing technology audit. Are there tools that you haven't used in the last month that you are still paying a monthly subscription for? Are you not creating enough content—or seeing positive enough results—to maintain spend on services you are subscribed to? I went through the exercise that I will share on my podcast that will help me save more than $5,000 next year. I mention this now,...
2 months ago • 7 min read
Neal Schaffer November 22, 2024 Hey Reader, I try to begin with my newsletters with a little personal touch and update, and I realized it has been awhile since I have "shown" myself to you ... so here is a photo I took last night after finishing the second class of a new semester at UCLA Extension teaching Personal Branding: How to Become an Influence. I plan to flesh this content into a bonafide book in 2025—stay tuned! I am also honored to receive my 3rd award for Digital Threads, this time...
2 months ago • 5 min read