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Threads Drives 73.6% More Engagement Than X

FEBRUARY 9, 2025

Buffer found that Threads generates significantly higher engagement than X, with a median engagement rate of 6.25% compared to X’s 3.6%, meaning Threads posts receive 73.6% more engagement.

Here’s a closer look:

Threads benefits from a community-driven approach, with discussions, open-ended questions, and interactive content that tends to foster deeper engagement.
As a newer platform, Threads also has lower saturation, allowing posts to gain more visibility. The algorithm prioritizes meaningful interactions, similar to Instagram.
That said, X remains the top platform for real-time and trending content like news, event discussions, and short-form posts. Opt for strong hooks, concise messaging, and leveraging retweets for amplification.
Crossposting between Threads and X leverages each platform’s strength to help maximize reach. Post consistently, encourage discussions, engage in comments, and use community-style tags.

Take a look at the data at Buffer.

Google’s Top Tips for Marketing in 2025

FEBRUARY 5, 2025

Google’s VP and General Manager of Ads and Commerce, Vidhya Srinivasan, shared these top tips for your 2025 marketing agenda:

Embrace AI as a business essential.

AI isn’t just an advantage—it’s a necessity for driving profitability.
Companies leading in AI adoption saw ~60% higher revenue growth than those still in early stages.
AI can help marketers do more with tighter budgets while meeting high business expectations.

Think beyond the traditional funnel.

Consumers engage across multiple platforms and devices simultaneously.
AI helps predict consumer behavior and enables brands to connect across search, video, and shopping moments.
Use AI-powered campaigns to engage customers where they stream, scroll, search, and shop.

Prioritize privacy for data-driven success.

Privacy-preserving technologies are crucial as first-party data remains essential.
Features like trusted execution environments protect user data while enabling effective measurement.

Read the full post over at Think With Google.

Report: Investigating ChatGPT Search

FEBRUARY 4, 2025

Generative AI is transforming how people search for information, shifting behaviors away from traditional search engines like Google and Bing.

The generative AI market is projected to expand annually by 24.4% through 2030. This surge is already influencing search trends, with ChatGPT increasingly directing traffic to a wider range of websites.

By analyzing millions of clickstream records, Semrush and Statista identified these key trends and changes in search intent, prompt length, and referral traffic distribution:

Market growth: The generative AI market was valued at $67 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow 24.4% annually through 2030.
Shift in search behavior: AI-powered search, like ChatGPT, is reshaping how people discover content, often prioritizing smaller domains over traditional search engines.
Traffic redirection: ChatGPT has rapidly increased its role in web traffic distribution, referring users to over 30,000 unique domains per day by November 2024.
SearchGPT on vs. off: About 54% of queries were handled without live web search, while 46% used the search feature, influencing the types of results shown.
Prompt length differences: ChatGPT queries without web search were longer (avg. 23 words), while those with search were shorter (avg. 4.2 words), mimicking Google-style searches.
Search intent evolution: Only 30% of ChatGPT queries fit traditional search intent categories (informational, commercial, navigational, transactional), with 70% being new or unique.
SEO & marketing adaptation: Experts suggest optimizing for AI-driven search through listicles, brand mentions, and visibility strategies as ChatGPT changes search intent patterns.
Emerging traffic trends: Tech and AI-related domains receive significantly more traffic from ChatGPT than from Google, indicating a shift in digital traffic sources.

Take a closer look at the full report by Semrush.

A Marketer’s Guide to Discord’s New Ad Format: Quests

FEBRUARY 3, 2025

Discord’s latest advertising solution, Quests, is designed to engage the platform’s highly active gaming community by rewarding players for interacting with brand content.

Here’s how it works and why it’s a game-changer for marketers:

Players accept a Quest. Users opt into Quests, which involve actions like watching a video, playing a game, or streaming content.
Players engage. Players complete your designated action, ensuring active participation with your brand’s content.
Players earn rewards. Users receive incentives such as in-game items or exclusive Discord avatar decorations, increasing motivation and engagement.

What to know:

With 200M monthly game players and 1.5B hours of gameplay per month, Quests provide access to a highly engaged audience.
When a player accepts a Quest, their friends see and can join in, amplifying brand reach.
Leverage Discord’s deep-rooted gaming communities to shape culture and drive decisions at the ground level.

Learn more from Discord to get started.

Implementing an Employee-Generated Content Process

FEBRUARY 2, 2025

Employee-generated content (EGC) is appearing in nearly every 2025 social media trend prediction. Why? It yields significant results.

Rachel Karten spoke with Byron Stewart, the associate director of social media at Team Epiphany, to learn more about implementing an EGC process.

Key insights:

Identify employees already interested in content creation.
Allow employees to opt in, offer incentives, and have structured content strategies.
Make employees comfortable with a hands-on approach and a positive environment.
Provide guidelines but avoid overly restrictive direction to maintain authenticity.
Utilize both employee-shot content and team-produced content in stores.
Cross-functional collaboration with HR and brand teams ensures consistency and mitigates risks.

Don’t miss the full conversation at Link in Bio.

What’s the Deal With DeepSeek?

JANUARY 29, 2025

DeepSeek’s rapid rise has disrupted the AI landscape, offering a cost-effective, open-source alternative to OpenAI.

Its impact on the stock market and U.S. tech dominance signals a major shift in AI competition.

Here’s what we know:

The Chinese AI firm was founded in 2023. Its key models include DeepSeek-R1 (reasoning), DeepSeek Coder, Janus Pro (vision). DeepSeek-R1 was developed for <$6M, far cheaper than OpenAI’s models.
R1’s success led to a U.S. tech stock sell-off on Jan. 27, 2025, challenging U.S. AI dominance. DeepSeek was subsequently targeted by large-scale attacks on the same day.
DeepSeek’s models use reinforcement learning, reward engineering, and distillation. The firm has been able to develop advanced AI despite U.S. chip restrictions.
Unlike OpenAI, DeepSeek offers free access to its LLMs. This new business model significantly undercuts OpenAI’s pricing.

Take a deeper dive on DeepSeek at TechTarget.

How Many Blog Posts Before Traffic From an SEO Strategy?

JANUARY 28, 2025

The answer? Well, it depends. But high-quality, SEO-optimized content published consistently goes a long way.

Keep in mind:

No one-size-fits-all answer. The number of blog posts required for SEO traffic varies based on niche, competition, and content quality.
Google sandbox effect – New sites often struggle to rank because Google requires them to prove authority before indexing content.
Importance of indexing – If your content isn’t indexed, it won’t appear in search results; consistency in publishing helps with indexing.
Varying opinions on post count – Some claim you need 60-150 posts to rank, but bloggers have seen success with as few as 4 posts.
Recommended posting strategy – Launch with at least 3 high-quality posts and aim for consistent posting (e.g., 1 post per week) to build authority.
Quality over quantity – More posts don’t always mean more traffic; SEO-optimized, high-quality content matters more than sheer volume.
Publishing frequency myths – Large publishers post dozens of times daily, but their traffic comes from factors beyond just volume (e.g., domain authority, news content).
Alternative posting strategies – Some bloggers batch-publish posts every few months rather than posting weekly, and still achieve SEO success.

Learn more from She Knows SEO.

5 ways to get the most from Performance Max in 2025

JANUARY 27, 2025

Google’s Performance Max (PMax) updates in 2025 will give advertisers even greater control and better results.

Here’s how to get the most out of the PPC platform:

Brand guidelines: Ensure your business name and logo assets are uploaded to maintain brand consistency across all ad placements. Refresh creatives to align with your campaign goals and messaging.
Negative keywords: Regularly review your search term reports to identify irrelevant queries and refine your negative keyword lists to prevent budget waste.
Demand Gen campaigns: Evaluate and adapt your Video Action campaign assets for use across Discovery and Gmail. Focus on crafting stories that resonate across these platforms.
Google Analytics 4 integration: Configure GA4 goals and events to measure important user actions, like form submissions or purchases, and use the insights to optimize campaigns and address potential drop-off points.
Smarter audience segmentation: Develop audience segments based on user behavior and interests, and customize your campaign messaging to better engage key groups like high-value or lapsed customers.

Find out more about the new features coming to PMax in 2025 over at Search Engine Land.

12 Pinterest SEO Tips to Increase Traffic

JANUARY 26, 2025

Here’s how to leverage Pinterest SEO to generate more organic and paid traffic from the platform:

Create a business account: Convert or sign up for a Pinterest business account for access to analytics and ad tools. Optimize your username, profile description, and logo for search visibility.
Link your website: Add the Pinterest tag for tracking, verify your website for profile branding on Pins, and install the Save button to boost Pin shares.
Set clear goals: Define traffic and conversion goals aligned with Pinterest’s strengths, such as lead generation and brand discovery. Start with metrics like impressions and re-Pins before pursuing conversions.
Conduct keyword research: Use Pinterest’s guided search, niche categories, and Promoted Pins to identify high-performing keywords for your Pins and boards.
Organize boards strategically: Name boards using top search terms in your niche, use custom cover images, and populate boards with high-quality Pins.
Design SEO-friendly Pins: Use a 2:3 image ratio (1,000px x 1,500px), bold colors, and keyword-rich titles. Enticing, descriptive Pins drive clicks.
Write optimized descriptions: Add keyword-packed, user-focused descriptions with hashtags to improve visibility and engagement.
Use scheduling tools: Automate Pinning, re-Pinning, and content creation.
Encourage engagement: Collaborate with influencers, create text overlays, post consistently, and track performance to grow your audience.
Join group boards: Expand your reach by participating in boards with shared content. Use scheduling tools to streamline participation.
Leverage visual search: Use high-quality, relevant images to optimize for Pinterest’s Lens technology and related searches.
Experiment with ads: Explore Pinterest’s ad formats like image, video, Shopping, and carousel ads. Test to discover what works best for your brand.