Latest Digital / Social Media Marketing News & Insights

​Presented by Neal Schaffer​

In this week's newsletter:

• Block out twenty minutes and set one your first Claude Skill.
• ChatGPT self-serve access is now open to all advertisers!
• Find out why starting with just one Meta Ads campaign is the move.

Hey Reader,

Hey [first name],

I'm writing this still buzzing from inside the stadium in Dallas. Japan vs. Netherlands, my blue jersey on, the hachimaki tied across my forehead, surrounded by tens of thousands of people who flew in from all over the planet to share one room for ninety minutes. The screen above us read "The Planet Is Our Field," and honestly, it felt like it.

Here's the thing about that feeling: you cannot download it. You can watch the match in 4K from your couch, read every tactical breakdown afterward, even let an AI summarize the whole thing in three bullet points. None of it comes close to standing shoulder to shoulder with a stranger from another country while you both lose your minds over the same goal. And, yes, even hugging strangers from another country after those goals!

Which got me thinking about where this is all heading for those of us in marketing. We talk about AI nonstop right now, this newsletter included, and for good reason. But AI is extraordinarily good at making one category of things infinite and nearly free: digital content, answers, copies, summaries. The economics of that are simple. When something becomes infinite and free, whatever stays scarce climbs in value.

The scarce thing is us. Real human presence, in real rooms, in experiences you can't compress into a file.

So here's what I believe more strongly every week: as AI hands us back our time, we won't pour all of it into more screens. We'll spend a growing share of it chasing the experiences that make us feel like people again, and we'll gladly pay a premium for them. The businesses that win the next few years won't just be the ones with the sharpest AI workflows. They'll be the ones who reinvest that freed-up time and money into something a model can never generate: a moment you had to be there for.

That's the question I want to leave you with. What in-person experience could your business offer that AI makes more valuable, not less? A live workshop, a small mastermind dinner, a behind-the-scenes day, a community that actually gathers? I've got a few ideas brewing on my end and I'd love to compare notes. Hit reply and tell me what you're thinking, or what you'd happily pay to be in the room for.

Now, let's get 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

The Multiplier Effect: How LinkedIn Ads Boosts Search, Content, And Pipeline - You've probably justified your LinkedIn ad budget on the leads it generates directly. New benchmark research from Factors.ai suggests that's the smallest part of the story. The data points to a multiplicative effect: LinkedIn spend lifts performance across your other channels too, from search to content to overall pipeline, in ways last-click attribution never captures. If your reporting credits LinkedIn only for what it closes on its own, you're almost certainly underrating it. Worth a reread before your next budget review. LinkedIn​

Building AI Agents: The System That Automates 60% of One Entrepreneur’s Workload - Tried building a single AI agent and walked away disappointed? You're not alone, and the problem usually isn't the tool. One agent working in isolation just can't do much. This walkthrough shows you how to build a connected system of agents mapped to your actual business processes, where the output of one feeds the next — the setup that can shoulder a real chunk of a solo operator's workload. If you've been agent-curious but underwhelmed by going solo, start here. Social Media Examiner​

AI Marketing In 2026: The Practitioner Playbook For Building A System AI Can’t Replicate - Two years ago, 60% of consumers said they preferred AI-generated content. Today it's 26%, even as 91% of marketers now use AI in their work. Audiences didn't get confused; they started rejecting the sameness. In my latest post I share the practitioner playbook I use to build a marketing system AI can't replicate — AI for leverage, without the interchangeable content readers have learned to tune out. If AI has made your content easier to produce but easier to ignore, this is the fix. Neal Schaffer​

How Paid Media Accelerates AI Visibility (And Why Most Marketers Are Missing It) - Ask most marketers why they run paid media and you'll hear the same answer: leads. True, but incomplete. The more interesting payoff here is speed — paid puts your brand in front of the right audiences fast, and that early visibility increasingly feeds how AI engines learn and cite you. As organic discovery slows, treating paid as an AI-visibility accelerant rather than a pure lead machine is a genuinely different way to think about the budget. A smart reframe. Foundation Inc.​

Social Media Advertising For Small Business: A Strategic Playbook That Won’t Burn Through Your Budget - Most small businesses I work with fall into one of two camps: posting organically and hoping, or throwing money at ads with no real plan. Both burn time and budget. In my latest post I walk through a strategic playbook for social media advertising that won't drain your account, covering how to balance organic, paid, and creator efforts so each one pulls its weight. If you've been winging your social spend and feeling like it shows, this gives you a structure to work from. Neal Schaffer​

This Week's Sponsor

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More Recommended Reads

How To Create Your First Claude Skill (Tutorial) - Every time you open Claude, do you retype the same context — your brand details, your tone, your rules — from scratch? There's a built-in feature that fixes exactly that, and most people have never switched it on. It's called Skills, and this step-by-step tutorial walks you through creating your first one so Claude remembers how you work without the constant setup. For anyone building AI into a real workflow, it's one of those small time-savers that compound. Block out twenty minutes and set one up. Reliable Soft​

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ChatGPT Opens Ads For All: How To React To This Shift - For months, advertising on ChatGPT meant scoring an invitation while everyone else waited. That's over: self-serve access is now open to all advertisers. The number that should get your attention — ChatGPT reportedly hit $100M in annualized ad revenue in its first six weeks, off a small fraction of advertisers. As access widens, the early-mover edge erodes, so the window to experiment cheaply is closing fast. If AI-native advertising is anywhere on your radar, now's the moment to test before the auction gets crowded. Neil Patel​

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LinkedIn Launches AI Training Courses For Marketers - LinkedIn just rolled out a set of AI training courses built specifically for marketers, created in partnership with Adobe. The curriculum covers the fundamentals of applying AI to marketing work, with completion adding credentials to your profile, useful now that AI fluency is quietly becoming a hiring filter. Even if you're past the basics yourself, it's worth knowing these exist for the people you manage or mentor. Structured upskilling from the platform your buyers already live on. Send it to your team. Social Media Today​

How Many Meta Ads Campaigns Should You Have At Once? - How many Meta ad campaigns should you actually be running? Jon Loomer's answer will surprise anyone who's built out a dozen: start with one. Consolidating budget into a single campaign gives Meta's system the signal density it needs to optimize, and fragmenting too early is one of the quietest ways advertisers sabotage their own results. There are real exceptions, and he covers when a second or third genuinely makes sense. If your ad account has sprawled, this is the structural reset to make before your next launch. Jon Loomer​

How Google Generative UI Will Impact Your Company’s SEO Strategy - Google's next big Search change has a name: generative UI — AI-generated tools, in-page booking, custom dashboards, and information agents, rolling out this summer. The takeaway for you is the same direction we've tracked, only sharper: Search now answers more queries on the page, pushing the goal further from earning clicks toward earning citations. The piece is clear on the response — original data, expert depth, structured markup, content built to be quoted. Read it before the summer rollout catches you flat. WebFX​

​Maximizing LinkedIn For Business Growth​

Unlock LinkedIn’s full potential with Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth—your go-to guide for building a powerful brand, generating leads, and driving real business results. Whether you're a business professional looking to attract clients, a job seeker wanting to stand out, an entrepreneur building your personal brand, or a sales professional focused on social selling and lead generation, this fully updated and expanded 2nd edition of Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth delivers a proven, practical playbook for maximizing LinkedIn in 2026 and beyond.

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