Latest Digital / Social Media Marketing News & Insights

​Presented by Neal Schaffer​

In this week's newsletter:

• Video now competes head-on with the pages your team works hardest to rank.
• When it comes to AI visibility: a citation and a mention are not the same thing.
• Did you know Instagram Reels still carry reach the feed can't touch?

Hey Reader,

Hey [first name],

As you read this, I'm on a plane to Dallas for something I've waited a long time to do again: sit in a World Cup stadium. Japan vs. Netherlands, the opening match for both teams, and there's no way I was missing it. I lived in Japan for 15 years, so somewhere along the way their national team became mine too, right alongside Team USA.

The last time I did this was 2002, when the tournament came to us. I still remember it vividly. I spent one match surrounded by Brazil's gloriously loud, dancing supporters as they faced Belgium, and another with my seats planted right in the middle of the Senegal fans for their game against Turkey. Different languages, different flags, total strangers, and yet for ninety minutes we were all exactly the same. The World Cup has a way of reminding you that we're global citizens first.

Reflecting on it, that 2002 tournament happened in a world that no longer exists. No social media. No AI. Traditional media still ran the show, and not one piece of what fills this newsletter each week had even been invented yet. In the 24 years since, digital didn't just arrive. It became the air we breathe.

Which got me thinking about what's coming. I don't believe AI will need anywhere close to 24 years to do the same thing. It's already rewriting the core of how all of us discover and consume information, and that reaches into every business we run and, in a real way, who we are. That's why I pack this newsletter with AI week after week. This is the shift, and I'd rather we learn to navigate it together now than scramble to catch up later.

And here's what keeps me genuinely excited. The same wonder I feel walking into that stadium is the wonder I feel watching AI let us do more, do it better, and do it faster than we ever could on our own. If that spark hasn't reached you yet, I'd love to help it along. Hit reply, tell me where you are on the journey, and let me see how I can help.

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.

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This Week's News

In 2026, Less Than One-Third of Google Searches Still Send A Click - Sixty-eight percent. That's the share of Google searches that now end without a click, according to SparkToro's new clickstream study with Similarweb, up from 60% in 2024 and the fastest acceleration the metric has seen in a decade. AI Overviews drive most of it, showing on more than 20% of results and cutting click-through sharply wherever they appear. The lesson Rand Fishkin draws is worth sitting with before you set next quarter's targets: the open web is shrinking, so the audiences you own matter more than ever. SparkToro​

YouTube Is Outranking Your Entire SEO Team On 1,723 Keywords - Foundation pulled 8,566 SaaS keywords and found something that should unsettle any content team: on 1,723 of them, YouTube outranks three or more competitors at once, beating brands with full SEO programs and years of domain authority on the same results page. Narrow it to keywords where YouTube tops five-plus rivals and you still get 166, worth 513,000 monthly searches of buyer intent. The takeaway is blunt. Video now competes head-on with the pages your team works hardest to rank. Foundation Inc.​

How To Create A LinkedIn Profile That Gets You Noticed (Complete Guide) - You can have fifteen years of experience and a LinkedIn profile that quietly works against you. I see it all the time. After teaching social selling at Rutgers for over a decade and writing a book on LinkedIn growth, here's what I know: a profile that's merely complete and one that actually gets you noticed are not the same thing. My new guide covers both, from setting yours up to turning it into a living storefront that earns clicks and opportunities. Your photo, headline, and About section do the heavy lifting, so that's where I'd start. Neal Schaffer​

OpenAI Tests Multi-Advertiser Ad Placements In ChatGPT - The slow build of ChatGPT into an ad platform took another step this week. As MarTech reports, OpenAI is testing a format that drops multiple advertisers into a single sponsored placement, sold by auction so it can add inventory without flooding people with ads, and it just widened targeting to the UK, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, and Mexico. None of this is live at scale yet. The direction, though, is unmistakable, and the AI tools your audience already lives in are quietly becoming paid media channels you'll soon be planning around. MarTech​

Instagram Statistics For 2026: 25 Numbers That Actually Matter (And Why) - Three billion monthly users, on a platform that looks almost nothing like it did two years ago. That's Instagram in 2026. I've spent years advising brands here, so for this piece I pulled the 25 numbers I think genuinely matter and explained why each should change a decision you're making. A few will surprise you, like the fact that Instagram now drives more than half of Meta's US ad revenue, or that Reels still carry reach the feed can't touch. If you're mapping the year ahead, these are the figures I'd anchor to. Neal Schaffer​

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More Recommended Reads

Why 62% Of AI Citations Don't Lead To Brand Mentions [Study] - Here's an uncomfortable truth about AI visibility: a citation and a mention are not the same thing. Semrush, with Kevin Indig, studied nearly 4,000 brand appearances across the major engines and found 62% were ghost citations, where your page feeds the answer but your name never reaches the reader. The hopeful part is that format moves the needle: comparative "X versus Y" content earned 2.4 times more real mentions than plain informational pages. So here's the question for your own AI scoreboard: are you tracking citations, or the mentions that build recognition? Semrush​

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AI Email Marketing Tools: Top Picks For 2026 - Email keeps quietly outperforming flashier channels, and the software running it is in the middle of an AI overhaul. HubSpot's new guide sorts the AI email platforms worth paying for in 2026 by use case rather than buzz, with an honest look at what each one is actually good at. What stands out is how far the AI reach now extends, from subject lines and send timing all the way to personalization and revenue attribution. If your email stack has been coasting, this is a useful afternoon's read for deciding what to keep and what to replace. Hubspot​

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AI Overview Click Data Reveals Unexpected User Behavior Patterns For Marketers - Not every AI Overview kills the click. New GWI data, reported by Search Engine Journal, turns up a gap most coverage misses: daily AI Overview users click through to sources half the time, against just 14% for occasional users. Read that again. The people most immersed in AI search are also the ones most willing to leave it for the real thing when they want depth. That makes those Overviews less of a dead end and more of a place to earn the click from your highest-intent readers. S​Search Engine Journal​

Claude Is The Fastest-Growing AI Traffic Source, Per New Data - Claude is still a rounding error in most analytics, and it's also the fastest-growing AI traffic source going. Search Engine Journal, citing SE Ranking, reports its referral traffic climbed nearly fourfold this year, with most of that leap landing in a single month. The absolute numbers stay tiny, so there's nothing here to react to today. What it offers is an early read on a traffic mix that's reshuffling, and US-audience sites tend to feel those shifts first. Watch it, don't chase it. Search Engine Journal​

YouTube vs. TikTok For Brands: Where Should You Invest Your Video Budget? - Plenty of brands split their video budget down the middle between YouTube and TikTok and call it balanced. vidIQ's data argues it isn't. A YouTube video carries a 10.6-day engagement half-life while TikTok's sits near zero, it gets cited roughly 200 times more often in AI search, and it returns about 23% higher ROI than other social. Their read is that YouTube belongs at the core of the budget for the reach and discovery that compound over time, with TikTok layered on top for the short, sharp spikes it does so well. VidIQ​

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