Latest Digital / Social Media Marketing News & Insights

​Presented by Neal Schaffer​

In this week's newsletter:

• Meta now charges you to share links from your Facebook Page.
• Leaked LinkedIn internal plans point to paid subscriptions (and more).
• Yelp now licenses its reviews to OpenAI for real-time local recommendations and in-chat bookings.

Hey Reader,

Greetings from Osaka, Japan!

This week I ran a webinar for the marketing team of a specialty coffee company I'm working with. Their homework was to sign up for their competitors' email lists and log everything that happened.

The results were all over the place. Six of the eight sites we reviewed used a pop-up, and half of the brands led with a 10 to 20% discount. One brand promised 10% off in its pop-up and then sent a 5% code. Another sent seven emails in two weeks.

Here's the thing, though: I'm in no position to judge. As I share in my latest post, I built a Facebook Group to 1,700 members and never once asked any of them for an email address.

That mistake looks more expensive every week. Meta now limits how many links your Facebook Page can share unless you pay, and new research shows Google's AI Mode sends fewer people to your website. Rented channels keep getting pricier, and email is the one channel you truly own.

So look at your own site the way this team looked at their competitors. Where do you ask for an email address, and what do you give in return? Both team members, independently, rejected the discount and chose to lead with expertise instead. That's a smart place to start.

How are you capturing emails today? Hit reply and let me know.

Let's jump into this week's updates!

Please note: Some links in this newsletter are affiliate links. If you make a purchase through them, I may earn a small commission—at no extra cost to you.

This Week's News

Research Shows Google AI Mode Sends Less Clicks And Is A Poor User Experience - Google keeps saying people love AI Mode. A new randomized field experiment says otherwise. Researchers from Penn and Northeastern tracked 1,100 people's searches for a week and found that users pushed into AI Mode clicked through to fewer websites, searched less often, and trusted Google less. Some started trying Bing and DuckDuckGo. Hiding AI Overviews, meanwhile, raised clicks with no drop in satisfaction. If your organic traffic has slipped, that may say more about Google's design than about your content. Search Engine Journal​

How To Create Pro-Quality AI Videos With Gemini Omni - You no longer need a film crew to stop the scroll. Google's Gemini Omni can build an AI avatar of you in about five minutes and drop it into any scene you can describe. The smartest use is a two-to-three-second hook that opens a talking-head video you've already filmed. This tutorial covers the four-part prompting formula (subject, action, environment, camera) and how to stitch 10-second clips into longer videos. Start on the $20 plan and test one hook this week. Social Media Examiner​

Facebook Group Marketing: What I Got Wrong With 1,700 Members - I built a Facebook Group to 1,700 members and never once asked any of them for an email address. After fifteen years of advising businesses on digital marketing, I still made the most basic mistake available. In my latest post, I share the playbook I'd follow if I started over. That includes the four capture points that turn members into subscribers, and why one of your three membership questions should be an email opt-in. I also cover which businesses shouldn't start a group at all. Start with the exit, not the entrance. Neal Schaffer​

Meta One Business Plans: What You Get At Each Tier - Meta now charges you to share links from your Facebook Page. Under the new Meta One business plans, organic link posts are capped at two per month, and the $49.99 Advanced tier only raises that to eight on Facebook and four on Instagram. This breakdown walks through all four tiers, from $14.99 to $499, and notes the pricing appears to apply per Page, profile, or WhatsApp number. Most small businesses won't need more than Essential. Eight links for $50 a month is a steep price for reach Meta already suppresses. Jon Loomer​

Organic SEO In 2026: Why I Still Bet On Earned Search Over Paid - This month, ChatGPT sent more traffic to my blog than LinkedIn did, despite my 300,000-plus social followers. After blogging here since 2008, I've rebuilt my case for organic SEO. Paid search now averages $5.42 per click and stops the moment you stop paying, while organic indexation is your only way into AI Overviews. I also share what happened when my Google traffic fell while Bing grew on identical content, and why brand mentions beat publishing more. You'll know exactly where your next search dollar belongs. Neal Schaffer​

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More Recommended Reads

LinkedIn Ditches Post Enhancement, Launches Post Proofreader - LinkedIn just made its position on AI-written posts very clear. The platform retired its AI post enhancement tool and replaced it with Post Proofreader for Premium members. The new tool only suggests edits to a draft you wrote, with inline change tracking so you approve every change. It follows LinkedIn's AI slop reporting option, which members used more than a million times in under three weeks. LinkedIn is drawing a line: AI can polish your post, but the ideas have to be yours. Social Media Today​

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Which Data Sources Should You Care About For AI Search? - If you only check whether you rank in Google, you're watching one door of a much bigger house. This tiered reference sorts the sources AI tools pull from by how confirmed they are. At the top are live grounding sources like Google Business Profile, Yelp, and Reddit. One eye-opener: Yelp now licenses its reviews to OpenAI for real-time local recommendations and in-chat bookings. Use the table to audit where your brand shows up beyond your own website. How many of the Tier 1 sources have you actually claimed? Search Engine Journal​

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How To Build Local Pages AI Systems Can Find And Trust - Your local service page might be invisible to AI for a reason no amount of content will fix. Cloudflare often blocks AI crawlers by default, and many business owners never know it's switched on. This session with Whitespark's Darren Shaw lays out the fixes. Confirm crawler access first. Hunt down old duplicate pages feeding AI outdated phone numbers. And write your review count and rating as plain text, since JavaScript review widgets are invisible to AI. Skip the access check and every dollar you spend on local content could be wasted. Search Engine Journal​

LinkedIn's Creator Monetization Expansion - LinkedIn is reportedly building the creator economy it never had. Leaked internal plans point to paid subscriptions, a creator fund, and a brand partnership marketplace, plus paid one-on-one sessions and ticketed events. For B2B brands, the experts your buyers already trust on LinkedIn could soon become formal partners. The advice here is to look past follower counts and find the niche voices your audience actually listens to. Build those relationships now, before a marketplace makes them competitive. Neil Patel​

How MCM Turned TikTok Growth Into US Sales - Can a luxury brand actually sell on TikTok? MCM grew from about 10,000 followers to 250,000 in a year, then turned that audience into a US sales program with a 14:1 return on ad spend. The order is the lesson. A year of trend-driven creator and brand content produced tested creative and audience data before any conversion campaign ran. Then came prospecting, retargeting, and lookalike audiences, with the TikTok Pixel tracking every step to purchase. If you've written off TikTok for premium products, study this one. Influencer Marketing Hub​

​Digital Threads​

Digital Threads is a practical guide for small business owners, entrepreneurs, and creators who want to grow their online presence with confidence. Learn proven digital marketing strategies, make the most of social media and AI tools, and build your brand without a massive marketing budget.

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