Yearly Archives: 2023

Hailee Steinfeld is mainly known for her acting chops, but her singing abilities bolster her esteem as a performer and stretch her brand to more audiences and fans. And just like her venture into music, companies often extend their brand to develop new products in industries where they don’t have any market share.

These initiatives are called brand extensions, and they allow companies to leverage their brand awareness and equity to create more revenue streams.

In this article, you’ll learn more about what a brand extension is and see examples of extension ideas that could inspire you.

Skip to:

• What a Brand Extension Is
• Brand Extension Types
• Brand Health Measures
• Brand Extension Examples

What is a brand extension?

Brand extension is a marketing strategy that involves a company using its well-established brand name or image to introduce a new product or product categories to its customer base.

This strategy works best when the new product category is related to its parent category and is something consumers and customers want.

Many companies use brand extensions because it allows them to leverage their parent brand’s brand awareness and authority to reach new demographics and open up new sales channels.

One company that does brand extensions well is Apple.

Although Apple started as a technology company that makes only computers (Macs), it soon extended its product line to include music players (iPods), mobile devices (iPhones), and tech accessories (Apple Watch and Earpods). Even though all these new products are different, the extension works because Apple didn’t drift too far from its parent product category. Instead, it leveraged its brand name to make penetrating the market a success.

What are the types of brand extensions?

Depending on the type of customers you have and what you want to achieve as a brand, you need to decide which brand extension strategy is right for your company.

Here are five different extension strategies that could work for you.

1. Line Extension

A line extension is when a parent brand launches a new product line in a category already familiar with its customers. With a line extension, brands don’t have to create new categories.

An excellent example of a line extension is when soft drink companies introduce new flavors to their existing drink lineup. Other examples could include introducing new scents, sizes, and colors to a product line.

2. Complementary Product Extension

Another way an established brand can extend itself is by creating complementary products for its main products.

For example, Nike, a sports brand, creates various equipment, wears, and other sport-related products that complement each other. We’ve also seen toothpaste companies use this type of extension for their original brand by adding toothbrushes and other oral care products as new categories.

3. Customer Base Extension

A company can create a branding extension for itself by launching different product categories for a single demographic.

Procter & Gamble (P&G), for example, does this well with the Pampers brand. Although P&G specializes in various products, the Pampers line focuses on making products like diapers and wipes for babies.

4. Company Authority Extension

Companies with high levels of authority in their sector can leverage this authority to create new products.

For instance, Samsung has a huge brand name in the technology space that allows them to launch different products in related categories with a measure of success. And because of its brand image, most consumers wouldn’t mind using a new product, whether it’s an air conditioner or a mobile phone.

5. Brand Lifestyle Extension

Who would have thought a tequila line from an energy company would sell out within a few hours? Well, Tesla did it. And it was primarily due to the personality and lifestyle of its CEO, Elon Musk.

However, Elon and Tesla are not the only ones to use a celebrity’s lifestyle to extend an existing brand. Other instances include Adidas/Kanye West’s Yeezy lineup and Fenty (a brand under LVMH) with Rihanna.

Brand Extension and Brand Health Measures

Before you can think about extending your brand, it’s important to make sure that your brand’s current iteration is in good health. What does that mean? Brand health refers to a brand’s ability to deliver on its value proposition and promise. Before you start launching a new product or service, make sure that customers are delighted with your current offerings.

Next, we’ll dig into what exactly you’ll need to assess brand health.

Brand Health Tracking

There isn’t just one metric available to diagnose brand health. Instead, you’ll need to view a variety of metrics to get a good picture of where your brand stands. Here are a few metrics you should already be tracking that will help you assess brand health.

• Net Promoter Score (NPS): Find your NPS by sending a survey asking customers if they’d recommend your service or product to a friend using a scale of 0 (likely) to 10 (unlikely). Customers who rated you at a 9 or 10 are considered “promoters.” Those who rated 0 to 6 are “detractors,” with those rated 7 to 8 considered “passive.”
  
• Customer Satisfaction Score: Similar to NPS, your customer satisfaction score is also a survey question. This one asks customers to rate their satisfaction with your service on a scale of 1 (very unsatisfied) to 5 (very satisfied).
• Brand Recall: Brand recall is used to measure brand awareness. Your survey question would ask something similar to “What company/brand comes to mind when you think of [product]?”
• Share of Voice: Share of voice lets you compare brand awareness across several marketing channels against your competitors.
• Purchase Intent: This survey question asks customers how likely they are to buy your brand on a scale from not likely to very likely. To find the score, total the number of customers that answered “very likely” and divide that number by the total number of respondents.

The metrics above are key to measuring brand health. With them, you can track your:

1. Brand Awareness

Surveys and focus groups will help you track both brand awareness and brand perception. Tools like SurveyMonkey can make running surveys a cinch, and allow your team to pull much-needed customer insights.

2. Brand Loyalty

Using both your NPS and customer satisfaction score can help you gauge brand loyalty. If your customers wouldn’t recommend your product or service to a friend, it’s a sign you have more work to do in building trust and delivering on your value proposition.

3. Social Media Listening

It may sound creepy but in this instance of social media listening, spying on your customers is a good thing. You’ll be monitoring your brand’s social channels for direct feedback and mentions of your brand to see just what customers are saying about it online. Use listening tools to collect customer feedback or respond directly to people mentioning you online. The more you learn about your customers, the better you’ll be able to serve them.

4. Messaging Targets

Using the metrics above will also ensure that your marketing strategy corresponds to the correct customer segment. Your customers will have different pain points and needs and will be at different points in their customer journey. As such, your messaging shouldn’t be one size fits all. You’ll need to ensure your marketing efforts target the right customers at the right time for their specific situation.

For example, you could group customers by product pages they’ve visited in the past and send them a marketing email mentioning that specific product. If your messaging is not aligned with the right customer segment, you risk providing a poor customer experience — which could derail your brand extension efforts.

Remember that customer experience and brand health are linked. You won’t successfully pull off a brand extension without ensuring both are in a good place.

What separates the best brand extensions from the worst?

Historically, the most successful brand extensions are the ones that closely tie to the company’s core brand or flagship product, like Gerber’s baby clothes and Dole’s frozen fruit bars. By entering tangential markets that can preserve their brand’s unique associations and perceived quality, companies can launch new products that consumers intuitively understand the benefits of, even though they’ve never seen them on a shelf.

On the flip side, a company can also exploit its brand and, in turn, ruin it.

Developing a new product in a market that isn’t closely tied to your flagship product or core brand, like what Zippo did with its women’s perfume, could cause some problems.

It could result in undesirable associations to your brand and weaken its existing associations and hurt your established products’ perceived quality.

So whether you’re a SaaS company or a consumer brand thinking about extending your product line, check out our list of the most and least successful brand extensions to help inspire your own.

Examples of Good Brand Extensions

1. Michelin

Image Source

When you hear the name Michelin, do you think of top-rated restaurants or food? Perhaps both? Michelin built their empire manufacturing car tires. In the late 1800s, the automobile industry was still in its infancy — at the time there were fewer than 3,000 cars in France — the Michelin company’s home base.

In an effort to help drivers plan their trips and boost car sales, Michelin rolled out a guide featuring gas stations, maps, how to change a tire, and other useful information. However, it wasn’t until the 1920s that the Michelin Guide took off. As the guide’s popularity grew, mystery diners were sent to various restaurants to provide reviews and a star rating system was implemented.

Now the Michelin Guide is a must-have reference for foodies and tourists, covering restaurants in roughly 41 countries.

What we like:

Michelin’s brand extensions is one of the riskier ones on this list, but it’s quite impressive. They took two seemingly unrelated industries and made it work — becoming the gold standard of restaurant ratings.

2. Reese’s Puffs Cereal

Image Source

Reese’s Puffs was my favorite cereal growing up, so I might be a little biased here. But with all the chocolate-flavored cereal around in the mid-90s, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup’s entrance into the cereal market was smart and natural.

Today, with some ad campaigns highlighting how kids can eat their favorite candy for breakfast, over 6 million consumers eat 1 to 4 servings of Reese’s Puffs per week according to Statista.

What we like:

Reese’s marketing efforts got parents on board with allowing their children to eat candy for breakfast.

3. Food Network’s Kitchen Items

Image Source

With an audience of over 13 million people, Food Network remains one of the world’s biggest TV channels.

Considering that many people were interested in what it does, Food Network saw an opportunity to extend its brand by partnering with Kohl’s Corporation to launch its kitchen and cookware products.

What we like:

The partnership was a success because Food Network served a specific audience with what they needed.

4. Gillette’s Razors & Shaving Supplies

Image Source

Gillette’s extension into making shaving products alongside its safety razor blades was a smart move. Why? It’s hard to imagine someone shaving without using shaving cream, foam, or gel?

What we like:

It was almost a necessity for Gillette to produce this complementary good for its flagship product.

5. Star Wars Action Figures

Image Source

Although Star Wars was popular among adults when the movie was first released in 1977, many children didn’t like it as much.

So how did the franchise become popular today? The Star Wars brand extended into the toy market. With action figures from characters in the movies, Star Wars was able to attract a new audience, build brand awareness and make a ton of sales in the process.

What we like:

Star Wars was able to tap into its dedicated fan base and market toys to not just die hard fans, but attract new ones with the addition of merch.

6. Colgate’s Toothbrush

Image Source

Just like Gillette’s razors and shaving products, Colgate’s toothpaste and toothbrush are complementary goods. But unlike the former example, you literally need a toothbrush to use toothpaste. Otherwise, you can’t brush your teeth.

What we like:

In my opinion, Colgate’s decision to enter the toothbrush market was a necessity and one of its best moves, helping it secure the third-largest slice of the oral care market.

7. Honda’s Lawn Mowers

Image Source

Honda’s line of lawnmowers might not elicit the most enjoyable memories of my childhood. Still, its entrance and success in a saturated market speak volumes for a company primarily known for selling cars.

What we like:

By leveraging its expertise in small motors to enter the lawn mower market in 1978, it now boasts the seventh-largest slice of market share in the global lawn mower industry.

8. Sunkist’s Vitamin C Tablets

Image Source

Featuring orange juice as its flagship product, Sunkist’s brand has associations with oranges, health, and energy. Sunkist produced vitamin C tablets that spawned an entire arm of business dedicated to vitamins and supplements to both bolster and leverage this association simultaneously.

What we like:

Sunkist was able to parlay their brand notoriety for orange juice into vitamin C supplements. It’s an extension that is on brand since oranges are a great source of vitamin C.

Examples of Unsuccessful Brand Extensions

Not every brand extension can be a hit. Here are a few examples of brands that have made brand extension mistakes — and the lessons you can learn from them.

9. Cadbury’s Instant Mashed Potatoes

Image Source

Cadbury is known for making high-end chocolate and candy. When it started producing low-end food products, like instant mashed potatoes, it’s not surprising to learn that its association with the finest chocolates weakened.

Smash, its instant mashed potato brand, actually reached mainstream success, but it was at the expense of lowering its flagship product’s perceived quality. Cadbury eventually sold Smash in 1986, over 20 years after introducing its instant mashed potatoes to the world.

What went wrong:

Cadbury’s food products were not up to the same high-quality standards as its candy and lost customer trust in the brand.

10. Levi’s Tailored Classics

Image Source

When Levi’s introduced Tailored Classics in the early 1980s, it already owned a large share of its target market, so it wanted to enter some new markets to sustain its high growth rate.

One of these markets was men’s suits, but since its brand was heavily associated with a casual, rugged, and outdoorsy lifestyle, Levi’s new product line conflicted with its core identity and failed to catch on.

What went wrong:

Consumers trusted Levis to produce durable clothing that could endure the wrath of mother nature, but, for that very reason, they didn’t trust them to deliver high-end tailored suits.

11. Pillsbury’s Frozen Microwave Popcorn

Image Source

Even though Pillsbury is known for producing foodstuffs, its frozen microwave popcorn couldn’t compete with Orville Redenbacher or General Mills’ Pop Secret because its product positioning of being “frozen for freshness” didn’t offer enough value. Sure, sticking your popcorn in the freezer is convenient (I guess), but that benefit pales in comparison to enjoying a better-tasting popcorn.

What went wrong:

Frozen popcorn was a hard sell — especially when consumers had better-tasting popcorn options from competitors.

12. Samsonite’s Outerwear

Image Source

While Samsonite’s outwear is more fashionable than Levi’s Tailored Classics, it still suffers from the same problem as Levi’s failed product line — the brand extension doesn’t align with Samsonite’s core identity.

Samsonite is known for making high-end luggage, suitcases, and business bags. So unless it thinks its flagship product’s elegant traits can transfer to a completely unrelated product line, its venture into the clothing industry could diminish its brand equity. This is most likely the reason Samsonite doesn’t list outerwear on its website anymore.

What went wrong:

Samsonite was unable to transfer its reputation for creating sleek luggage to clothing.

13. Arm & Hammer’s Underarm Deodorant Spray

Image Source

Arm & Hammer has successfully extended its brand from an odor-neutralizing baking soda to laundry detergent, carpet deodorizer, and even cat litter. But one product line that isn’t the best fit for its brand is an underarm deodorant spray. Applying a product that shares an ingredient with heavy-duty cleaning supplies to such a sensitive part of the body doesn’t jive well with consumers.

What went wrong:

While Arm & Hammer is known for making excellent cleaning products, customers just couldn’t picture themselves using its products on their bodies.

14. Colgate Kitchen Entrees

Image Source

Although Colgate did well by extending its brand and creating different oral care products, it failed to enter the food space.

This brand extension was a failure mainly because selling frozen food was in sharp contrast with Colgate’s brand identity. Since its audience already associated the brand name with dental care, it was hard for them to see the company differently.

What went wrong:

Pivoting from oral care to food was not a switch that got buy-in from customers.

Grow Your Brand

While a brand extension has its benefits, you also need to know that extending your brand into unchartered waters would also come with challenges.

So before you implement any extension strategy for your business, ensure it’s in line with what your ideal consumer wants.

Does it make any logical sense to start marketing a new product to my customers? What benefit would a consumer derive from this new brand or product? Have I done enough research to know how a brand extension would affect my original brand?

Once you answer those questions, then you can start thinking about effective ways to grow your brand.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in June 2021 and has been updated for comprehensiveness. 

Heat maps are a game-changer for marketers who want to optimize their website and blog for better engagement and conversions.

By using heat maps to track user behavior, marketers can determine what their visitors like, what they don’t like, and what they’re ignoring.

Here, we’ll take a closer look at heat maps, how they work, and the different types of maps you can use to optimize your website for more conversions and less friction.

Table of Contents

What is a heat map?

How do heat maps work?

Different Types of Heat Maps [+ What They Can Tell You]

How to Use Heat Maps

Imagine a marketer is re-designing a landing page and wants to position a call-to-action in a high-traffic area. Instead of taking wild guesses on where it should go, she generates a heat map of her website, allowing her to see where visitors are most engaged.

This is what makes heat maps so effective. They allow marketers to visualize, understand, and interpret complex data at a glance.

By identifying patterns in movement and behavior, marketers tailor their websites to improve user experience, increase conversion rates, and even reduce bounce rates.

How do heat maps work?

Different color schemes can be used in heat maps — from grayscale to rainbow. However, rainbow-schemed maps are typically preferred because they enable you to interpret data points more easily.

The “hot” sections of a heat map — typically represented by warmer colors — are most popular with users. Alternatively, the “cold” sections — typically represented by cooler colors — are less popular.

There are two main categories of heat maps:

• Interaction heat maps are used to identify how users interact with a website or blog. They do this by tracking clicks, mouse movements, and scrolling behavior.
• Attention heat maps are more complex, leveraging eye-tracking technology to record the movement of a user’ eyes as they scan a webpage.

Next, we’ll discuss the different types of heat maps and the benefits of each.

Different Types of Heat Maps [+What They Can Tell You]

1. Scroll maps

Scroll maps show you the percentage of visitors who scroll through each section of your webpage. The hotter the section, the more visitors have viewed it. This data can help determine where to place CTAs or important information on your webpage.

For instance, if your visitors only scroll down 50% of the page, placing a CTA closer to the top — rather than the middle or bottom — would make sense.

Remember: When using scroll maps, always look at metrics on different devices, including smartphones and tablets.

(Image Source)

2. Click maps

As the name suggests, click maps identify the parts of your page that visitors click on the most. The hotter the section, the more frequently your visitors click on it.

This data can show you if visitors care to click on your CTAs or other buttons that allow them to take a desired action. It can also show you if they’re getting distracted by non-clickable elements or experiencing navigational issues.

(Image Source)

3. Hover maps

Hover maps, also known as mouse-tracking heat maps, show you where visitors hover their cursor while reading your webpage. The hotter the area, the longer they hang their cursor over it.

This data can help determine how visitors actually navigate your website, so you can place important elements in a location where they’ll receive the greatest amount of attention possible.

For example, a marketer can track the hover patterns on a checkout page to see where customers experience the most friction.

(Image Source)

How to Use Heat Maps

Analyzing the heat map of each type of page on your website would be ideal, but, unfortunately, it isn’t efficient. The most effective way to leverage heat maps is to analyze the pages that influence your website’s conversion rate the most: your home page, landing pages, and high-conversion blog posts.

Home Page

Your homepage is an introduction to your brand. If you constantly monitor which sections visitors are scrolling through and whether they’re hovering over key information and clicking on CTAs, then you’ll know exactly where to place the most important elements of your homepage, reducing your bounce rate and increasing your conversion rate.

Landing Pages

Your landing pages are the last step in turning visitors into leads. If you can analyze your users’ behavior on these pages, then you can implement the optimal landing page design for generating the most amount of leads for your business.

High-Conversion Blog Posts

Your CTAs placement on your blog posts can heavily influence their conversion rate. For instance, at HubSpot, even though our end-of-post banner CTAs are visually engaging, we found out that they only generate a small fraction of our blog leads.

After analyzing our heat maps, we discovered that our anchor text CTAs, which are just hyperlinked blurbs of text located after each blog post’s introduction, actually generated the majority of our blog leads because most visitors saw the CTA at the beginning of the post and not the one at the end.

Back to You

Whether you’re A/B testing your website design or figuring out the best place to put a call-to-action on your blog posts, heat maps are your best tool for measuring attention and designing content that connects with your audience and converts them into leads and customers.

We all know the frustrating feeling — you’ve collected all the images you need for your next campaign, but when you go to press “Send” you’re told, “Sorry. File too large.”

Figuring out how to send large files on the fly is a pain. Unfortunately, our email accounts can’t carry as much storage as you might think. Gmail, for instance, can only hold files up to 25 MB.

Additionally, large files can eat at your storage space, even if it’s just sitting in your Sent folder. If you’ve got a file you can’t send the traditional way, don’t worry — we’ve got several alternatives (some free), to ensure the largest of files can be sent to whoever, within minutes.

Skip to:

• How to Send Large Files in Email
• How to Send Large Files Over the Internet
• How to Send Large Files via File Sharing Service

How to Send Large Files in Email

1. Upload your files to a cloud storage space, and share them or email them to others.

Pros

• Easy to use
• Great for internal company sharing

Cons

• Limited to your service provider

Using a cloud storage space like Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive is one of the easiest and most popular methods for sending large files. Depending on your email provider, you’ll likely be able to use corresponding cloud storage — like Google Drive for Gmail, or OneDrive for Outlook.com.

If you’re sending an attachment within a provider like Gmail, you’ll see the Google Drive button already integrated. Simply press it, choose your file, and then send it like a regular attachment.

Alternatively, Dropbox allows you to upload large files and then send a web link via email or text to your recipient. With Dropbox’s free tier, you’ll receive 2 GB of storage space. For $9.99 per month, you can increase your storage to 1 TB.

Best for: Ease-of-use when sending attachments through your email provider. Most likely to use when sharing files internally with colleagues.

2. Use WeTransfer, a free online service.

Pros

• Free
• No download required
• No install required

Cons

• Limited file size for free version (2 GB)

Image Source

WeTransfer is one of the simplest ways to share files online with the added bonus of not having to register to use the service. Once on the website, all you need to do is upload your file (up to 2 GB), enter a destination email, enter your email, a title, and a message and you’re all set. 

Best for: Emailing large files without having to sign up or download anything.

How to Send Large Files Over the Internet

3. Use a VPN.

Pros

• Sends files securely
• Keeps sender’s location private

Cons

• Could slow connection
• Requires tech savvy to install

A VPN, or Virtual Private Network, is a service that protects your data and provides you with more privacy when you’re online by routing your internet connection through a server. A VPN can protect you from hackers, or even online ads, and is a secure option, particularly if you’re often using public wi-fi.

Some internet service providers (ISP) use broadband traffic management to moderate upload bandwidth — if this is the case for your ISP, you can use a VPN, which will prevent your ISP from recognizing how large your files are, enabling you to send them.

However, this isn’t the best option in our list for two reasons — one, the large file could slow down your VPN connection, and two, your files aren’t guaranteed to be intact upon delivery. To ensure a high-quality delivery, you might want to try an alternative option, like a Zip compression.

Best for: If you’re using public wifi and you’re sending private documents, this is a good option for increasing security measures. However, this may not be the best option if you need to ensure high-quality delivery.

4. Use FTP via FileZilla

Pros

• Fast transfers
• Simple to use

Cons

• Unencrypted

Image Source

FTP, or File Transfer Protocol, is an option for transferring files online by uploading a file to your hosting server. FileZilla is a free FTP tool you can use to transfer files.

Once installed, users can easily select the files to be transferred with FileZilla’s two-pane display by clicking and dragging them into place. It’s great for sending files greater than four gigabytes. The software is frequently updated so if you encounter any bugs, changes will be resolved quickly.

The few downsides to using FTP is that files are not encrypted and with FileZilla, the free version also includes adware but upgrading to the paid version will eliminate this issue.

Best for: Using FTP software is best for transferring large, non confidential files that don’t need to be encrypted.

5. Transfer files using SFTP.

Pros

• More secure than FTP
• Speedy file transfers

Cons

• Requires tech savvy to install

FTP, or File Transfer Protocol, is an option for transferring files online by uploading a file to your hosting server. However, the disadvantage of FTP is that it isn’t that secure — which is where SFTP comes in.

SFTP — or Secure File Transfer Protocol — is a protocol that works in a similar way to FTP, except it uses secure shell for encryption. This is a good option for limiting accessibility to those outside your recipient list. Some of the other options in this list, including file transfer options that rely on email, are likely less secure than an SFTP.

Best for: A more secure option than traditional online file-sharing, to be used when sending highly classified files to colleagues or clients.

Other Ways to Send Large Files

6. Use file compression software, like 7-Zip.

Pros

• Eliminates storage obstacles
• Quick transfer time

Cons

• You have to manually compress files
• Recipient must know how to decompress files

Image Source

If you have multiple files, you might consider using a free compression software like 7-Zip, which can compress an entire folder of files at once. Zip files in general support lossless data compression, and are good for saving time and space while ensuring your files remain intact. Most operating systems can extract Zip files easily, without additional software.

7-Zip is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. You can also provide a password for your files with 7-Zip, to ensure they’re safe to send online.

Best for: Sending a folder full of files at once to a recipient.

7. Purchase a USB flash drive.

Pros

• Simplest way to transfer files
• Portable

Cons

• Data is gone if you lose it
• Not ideal for time-sensitive deadlines

If you want to collaborate on a project or video with a large storage size, you might consider uploading it to a USB flash drive, which can range in size from 2 GB to 1 TB. This might allow you to pass your files more easily between coworkers, or back your files up for additional protection.

Best of all, if you use a USB you can take some strain off your computer, extending its data storage.

Best for: If you’re interacting with your team in person, a USB flash drive is a good option for physically handing files to team members, and takes some of the storage strain off your devices. Alternatively, a USB flash drive is safe to use as a back-up, so if your computer crashes you don’t lose access to your files or folders.

8. Use Jumpshare, a free online service.

Pros

• Free
• Get up to 2 GB of storage space

Cons

• No client side encryption

Image Source

There are plenty of free online services that make uploading and sending large files both easy and incredibly quick. Jumpshare, for instance, lets you send up to 250 MB worth of files with a free account — simply upload a file or folder, and Jumpshare provides you with a link to share the files.

Plus, you can download the Jumpshare icon to your desktop. When you drag-and-drop files onto it, a link will be copied to your clipboard, which you can send to anyone, even if they don’t have their own Jumpshare account.

Best for: Easily, and quickly, sending files via links to colleagues. Best used for files or folders for which there aren’t too many privacy concerns, since the link is shareable with anyone.

9. Try Rakuten Drive Pro.

Pros

• Secure password protected
• Send files up to (50GB)

Cons

• Free version has ads

Rakuten Drive, formerly Sendy, provides 1 TB of cloud storage and unlimited Cloud storage to transfer large files. What sets this tool apart from the rest is the ability to send your files using a password with recipients, so you can share files without needing access to everyone’s email addresses. Alternatively, you can send a link through email or a company messenger, like Slack, when you don’t need to transfer the files in real time.

Rakuten Drive enables you to attach big files using Chrome Extension, Outlook add-ins, and Send Anywhere’s website. It’s $7.99/month for the PRO version — or you can try the free version if you don’t need the PRO features.

Best for: The password enables you to quickly message or send files to anyone, without needing an email address. This might be good for quickly Slacking files to colleagues, or texting a file to a friend.

10. Upload the file and generate a link to share via MyAirBridge.

Pros

• Free version
• Share up to 20 GB

Cons

• Password protection only for the Enterprise version

Image Source

MyAirBridge is a free tool that enables you to upload and share up to 20 GB through an email, shared link, or downloaded to your own storage space. You can use your own mobile device to upload files. For larger files the uploading takes a while, and it may not be the cleanest interface on the receiving end (the link your recipient receives takes them to direct download), but it gets the job done for personal or small team use.

MyAirBridge also offers plans ranging from Basic ($2.99/month) to Enterprise ($65.99/month). With the Enterprise option, users have access to 15 TB of storage, unlimited uploads of up to 100 GB, and the option to password-protect files for extra security.

MyAirBridge is a good option if you want to download various files (including music or video files, game applications, or documents) to your own storage space. For instance, you might use the tool to download music from your mobile device to your computer.

Best for: Downloading files to your own storage device, or use when downloading music, gaming, or video files.

11. Share a collection of assets to your team via Brandfolder.

Pros

• Stores all files in one place
• Sets user-level permissions

Cons

• No free version

Image Source

Consider sharing brand assets, or a collection of assets, with your team, partners, or customers using Brandfolder. Brandfolder lets you use tiered access to share files with intended individuals, and even measure performance of each asset using Brandfolder’s Brand Intelligence feature.

Used by major brands including Slack, Bumble, and Hotels.com, Brandfolder enables you to store all brand-related assets in one place. Brandfolder is cloud-based, and uses user-level permissions to ensure employees and clients only have access to the appropriate files and folders.

Brandfolder offers Premium and Enterprise options. Request a quote to learn how much it would cost for your team to implement.

Best for: A more professional-looking option when sharing brand-related assets with clients or agencies, and a good long-term solution for storing all major files in one place for your team to access easily.

How to Send Large Files via Email Attachment

While you can’t send large files via email attachment the traditional way, there is a workaround using a cloud storage device. Start by storing your files in a cloud storage provider like Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive.

When you want to send the file, simply share the file with someone, and then notify them via email that you have done so. For example, if you’re using Google Drive, simply click share in the top right corner of the document you’d like to send. From there you’ll be prompted to enter the recipient’s email information and select whether or not they should have editing permissions. Google Drive will automatically send them an email notification or you can choose to send them a link instead.

Another way is to utilize built-in integrations with Gmail or Outlook. If you use Gmail or Outlook.com, you’ll find a Google Drive or OneDrive integration. When attaching your file to an email, you can click the Google Drive or OneDrive button to share the file.

When the recipient receives your email, they can download your file to their computer, or open it online through the cloud storage service you used to send it.

Sending Large Files Made Simple

Sending large files doesn’t have to be an obstacle in your workday. By using the methods above, you’ll be able to share large files with ease and collaborate with your team seamlessly.

Editor’s note: this article was originally published in June 2021 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

It’s almost here…

Thanks for your interest in our upcoming Generative AI report and its corresponding pillar, “The State of Generative AI & How It Will Revolutionize Marketing [New Data + Expert Insights]”.

If you’ve arrived on this page, we know our content so far has made you eager to see the full report. Check back on this same page on May 17, 2023, for our full report and corresponding blog posts.

We hope you enjoy what we’ve got in store for you! 

Worried you’ll forget? Click here or below to set a Google Calendar reminder that will notify you when the report is live.

Curious what’s in store? Here are a few topics we’ve got coming for you: 

• Data from 1,350 U.S. professionals who work in marketing, sales, and service on how they’re using AI
• The coolest jobs that could be created around AI
• How to train your own teams to be better than bots 
• How to handle AI ethics
• Types of artificial intelligence and how marketers are using it
• AI prompts to consider for marketers 

… and much, much more. 

Plus, hear from leaders at Jasper AI, Mention, Rock Content, and more. 

We’ll also send this content out in our Marketing Blog Newsletters, so be sure to subscribe to the HubSpot Marketing Blog by clicking the banner below and never miss a beat!

Our recent State of AI 28% of marketers who don’t use AI in their roles say it’s because generative AI tools are too expensive. This makes sense because, as a good marketer, you should be skeptical about high-priced tech, especially with emerging technology. 

But, at the same time, there are many affordable AI tools that can help you save time and meet your marketing goals. And, for what it’s worth, 60% of marketers in the same survey also reported that AI/automation tools are important in their day-to-day roles.

In this piece, we’ll share a list of free AI tools, outline the three-step process for implementing AI on a budget, and share how marketers currently leverage AI tools in their roles. 

Table of Contents

• Affordable AI Tools for Business
• How to Implement AI on a Budget [3 Steps]
• What AI tools are marketers currently using? [Research]
• Familiarizing Yourself With AI

Affordable AI Tools for Business

Even though marketers who responded to our survey say that they’ve not yet adopted AI because of the price, also consider that all survey respondents who use AI/automation tools say it saves an average of two hours and 24 minutes per day. 

Watch on YouTube

Here’s a list of affordable and free AI tools to consider adopting into your marketing processes. 

1. HubSpot

Price: Free CRM; Plans start at $50 per month and vary based on team size and tier subscription tier.

HubSpot incorporates AI in a number of ways. Here are just a few:

• Content Creation: Content Assistant uses generative AI to help you create outlines, emails, and even blog ideas so you can share high-quality content with your audiences. 
• SEO: HubSpot’s COS and CMS use algorithms to scour your posts for search optimization suggestions before you post.
• Emails and Workflows: When a customer does something such as engage with an email or landing page, this will trigger a canned email to be sent to them with their name and other personalizations in it.
• Social Media: HubSpot’s social media platform allows you to autogenerate post caption copy using machine learning. This technology recognizes sentences that you might regularly tweet or meta descriptions in a link you’re sharing, then crafts a caption that you can then edit or tweak.
• Deduplication features: If you upload a new list into a HubSpot CRM, or a pre-existing contact subscribes to your marketing newsletter, HubSpot will search the CRM to find matching contacts and prevent any duplicates from being added.

2. Grammarly

Price: Free; Paid plans $12/mo – $15/mo per member

Grammarly is an intuitive copy-editing tool that uses machine learning to recognize and highlight spelling, grammar, and other phrasing errors on platforms like Google Docs, email, and social media sites.

Image Source

As an individual user, Grammarly tracks your writing performance, gives edit suggestions based on your writing experience, and sends you emails that show where you’re excelling and areas for improvement.

Grammarly’s tone detection tool is a high-quality feature that recognizes the tone of your writing For example, if you’re writing an email with “Thank you” in it, Grammarly will note that your message sounds “appreciative,” or “optimistic.”

Pro Tip

Grammarly’s team version unlocks customizable editing features that allow the software to make suggestions with your company’s writing styles and branded words in mind.

To learn more about Grammarly and other productivity tools, check out this blog post.

3. ChatGPT

Price: Free; ChatGPT Plus $20/month

ChatGPT is OpenAI’s conversational chatbot, meaning you can reply to its responses and have a conversation to get all the information you need. It uses natural language processing (GPT-3, GPT-3.5, and GPT-4 Beta language models) to understand prompts and provide original, detailed, and accurate responses. 

You can use the tool to get inspiration or produce content like blog posts or marketing emails. The image below is an example of a marketing email I asked it to create for a product announcement. 

You can also use ChatGPT Plugins (waitlist here) that connect to third-party applications to help you get the best use of the tool for your needs.

Pro Tip

OpenAI’s Chat API lets you build applications using GPT-3.5-turbo and GPT-4 or integrate the tools with your existing applications and products. You can find API pricing here. It also hosts two plugins for web browsing (in beta), a code interpreter for Python, and a knowledge-base retrieval plugin available through open-source code. 

4. Frase.io

Price: $14.99/mo (solo) – $114.99/mo for 3 seats

Frase.io is an AI-powered research assistant and question-answering bot helps you optimize articles and other content for SEO by reading your text, comparing it with similar online content, and offering search and keyword-based suggestions.

Image Source

Frase.io also has a bot feature that site visitors can use to locate content on your site by simply typing a question into the message box.It uses machine learning to understand phrases and match the words with content or pages related to those words.

Image Source

 

Pro Tip

Battling writer’s block? Frase.io can help with that. It offers a number of tools that create content automatically — such as its Blog Introduction Tool, which automatically generates a 100-word introduction for your blog title.

5. DALL-E 2

Price: $15 for 115 credits (requires account)

DALL-E 2 is OpenAI’s advanced image generator that creates original, detailed, realistic images based on an input prompt. Simply describe what you want to create or upload an existing image, and you’ll get a batch to choose from. 

It can also expand on existing images, like in the example below, where it added a background of the same style and construction to the famous Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer. 

Image Source

Pro Tip

DALL-E API is available in public beta, so developers can integrate the tool directly into your apps and products for easy and seamless use.

6. Google Analytics

Price: Free; contact sales for Analytics 360 enterprise pricing

You’ve probably heard of or already use Google Analytics. Its machine learning capabilities will answer questions about your website data, give in-depth insights into your site performance, and view the data you need to inform your strategies. 

To learn more about this platform and how to get started on it, check out this ultimate guide.

Pro Tip

On top of giving you detailed insights into how your website is doing, GA also integrates with all of Google’s marketing products — including Google Ads, Search Console, and Data Studio.

6. Bing Chat

Price: Free (Bing Chat requires Microsoft Edge)

Microsoft’s Bing Chat is a conversational tool that responds to prompts with accurate answers. It offers two high-quality options for marketers: image creation and content composer. 

The compose feature can create entire blog posts or single paragraphs, emails, social media captions, or simply give you content inspiration. You can select your preferred tone, send a prompt, and get started easily. 

Image Source

With Bing Image Creator, simply type a brief image description of what you want to create, and you’ll get a custom image to use. It uses OpenAI’s DALL-E, and the recommended prompt format is adjective + noun + verb + style, and it’s accessible in creative mode.

Pro Tip

You can get even more use out of the tool using Microsoft Edge Sidebar because it recognizes the web pages you’re on and helps you create content without navigating elsewhere.

7. Ahrefs

Price: $99/month (lite) -$999/month (Enterprise)

Ahrefs uses data from Google and other search engines to show you how your web pages rank for certain keywords. You can also query words or phrases to see how people look them up on search engines so you can develop an SEO strategy to meet consumer needs.

To give you more of an idea of how the software works, here’s a demo that walks you through how to do keyword research with Ahrefs:

If you’d like to better your keyword research strategies, but can’t afford something as intuitive as Ahrefs, you can also check out these tools which similarly leverage AI algorithms to help marketers identify search opportunities.

Pro Tip

Use Ahrefs’ Content Explorer tool to uncover content that generates a lot of social shares. And, if a specific social media platform is important to you — such as Twitter, you can filter shares on that specific site. In addition, you can analyze any page’s social shares over time.

8. Buffer

Price: Price: Free; or $6/month (one channel) – $120/month (10 channels)

Image Source

If you’re a social media marketer, AI tools can take your work to the next level in a fraction of the time.

Buffer is a social media management software offering a range of tools to publish, track, and measure your social media content. For instance, you can maximize engagement by scheduling posts at the most optimal time of day, when your audience is most active.

Pro Tip

For many social media marketers, creating a steady stream of amazing content is challenging. With Buffer’s Calendar tool, you can schedule content months ahead, identify any content gaps, and hone in on certain holidays.

9. Mailchimp

Price: Price: Free; or $13/month – $350/month

Image Source

Mailchimp is a popular email marketing software that lets you create campaigns and build automated workflows. Depending on your plan, you can also access advanced audience insights and a library of email templates.

Its content optimizer benchmarks your email content among other emails and uses AI to give you data-driven advice to improve performance.

Pro Tip

Use the Customer Journey Builder to automate marketing workflows for your contacts. From simple to highly complex, these journey maps can contain multiple starting points, branches, and unique actions — guaranteeing each of your contacts has a personalized experience.

10.Jasper

Price: Starts at $24/month

Jasper is a high-quality AI assistant that can help generate multiple types of content like blog posts and product descriptions, and the image generator helps you create the best image to match your needs. 

Pro Tip

Jasper has a Chrome extension that you can use to ideate and create marketing content within the apps you already use. 

Once you choose an AI tool, how can you implement it?

How to Implement AI on a Budget [3 Steps]

1. Determine where AI tools could help you eliminate costs.

At some point, you’ll need to spend money to implement AI. But, how you structure an AI pilot project can help you defray some of the costs.

Although AI, when done right, can increase revenue and reduce costs, you’ll still want to start with a cost-reduction pilot before a revenue-increasing experiment.

A cost-reduction pilot aims to improve (or streamline) processes you already have in place. A revenue-generating pilot, on the other hand, might require new processes — which could ultimately cost more time and money.

To kickstart your cost-reduction pilot, first identify time-intensive or repetitive tasks that hold you — or your team — back from high-quality projects in your organization. 

Start by making a list of your recurring responsibilities. Track everything you do every week or month, and list the amount of time you spend on each activity. Chances are, there are a ton of tasks that take way too much time each month. It’s likely they’re also pretty data-driven, too.

Next, explore vendors who have created more intelligent ways to do the tasks that are blocking your team.

For example, you might discover that tagging images on your website takes up too much time. AI software can probably free you up from doing that task. Or, you might spend hours each week managing paid advertising. AI can help there, too.

In fact, there are dozens of ways you can apply AI to immediately free up team time and resources. And, depending on the cost reductions, these pilots may pay for themselves.

Click on the playlist above or here to listen to The Business of AI, featuring shows in the HubSpot Podcast Network.

2. Research tools that work out of the box.

A handful of small to medium-sized businesses might worry about blowing their budgets when they hear the words, “artificial intelligence” because — at the moment — many AI solutions are built for corporate enterprise.

The truth is, many AI tools need access to quality data at scale to produce results. Enterprises are often the only source of this data. But this doesn’t mean you need to count out AI as a marketer for a smaller business.

In fact, a number of AI tools are affordable, work out of the box, and cut time on basic marketing tasks (like the ones listed above).

Additionally, you might not know it, but you might already be using popular office tools that are powered by AI.

3. Ask these questions before investing in an AI product.

There are some vendors out there that claim to be AI but aren’t. If you don’t understand what to look for, you could waste time and money on lackluster solutions.

That’s why we encourage every marketer to establish a baseline knowledge of AI. (Our beginner’s guide will cut down your learning curve.)

Aside from familiarizing yourself with the technology, you also need to ask smart questions of AI vendors about the tools they sell.

Start with questions like:

• How does ____ use AI today?
• What AI capabilities are on the product roadmap?
• What type of data do I need for the solution to work?
• Is there any type of minimum size dataset I need to use the solution? (i.e. a certain number of emails sent, visitors to the site, etc.)
• What kinds of in-house capabilities do I need to use and maintain the solution?: Can anyone use it? Do I need dedicated data scientists, machine learning experts?
• My top use cases for AI are A, B, C, etc. Can ___ help?

Curiosity may have killed the cat. But it also saves marketers tons of money when buying new technology. So, don’t be afraid to ask questions and do deep research on each product you’re considering before you invest.

What AI tools are marketers currently using? [Research]

With all that being said, what tools are marketers currently using in their processes? 

In our recent State of AI survey, we asked 1350+ business professionals about their use of AI/automation. 

Here are some key takeaways. 

The most popular generative AI tools among marketers who use AI are chatbots (68%), visual AI tools (57%), and text generation tools (56%). 

When creating marketing content, marketers using AI say that Chatbots (e.g., ChatGPT, Bing AI, Google Bard) are the most effective tool. And once it becomes publicly available, marketers see themselves using and are most likely to use ChatGPT for work-related tasks. 

Marketers using AI to create marketing content say they most often use generative AI to get ideas/inspiration (33%), write copy (28%), and create images (26%).

The most popular text generation tools among marketers who use AI are Compose AI (30%), Jasper (27%), and Copy.AI (26%). And the type of content they most often use generative AI to write are emails (38%), social media posts (36%), and product descriptions and blog posts (both 30%). 

Familiarizing Yourself With AI

Artificial intelligence can sound intimidating and expensive but, truth is, it’s only going to get more and more prominent in our workplaces. 

Ultimately, the best strategy for vetting AI products, tools, and opportunities that may come your way in the future is to research credible sources and ask the right questions about the software you’re considering.

If you’re looking to take the next step with technology implementation, check out HubSpot Academy’s latest course, “Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Marketing.” The course gives an introduction to AI and machine learning while also walking you through how to implement it in your company’s marketing department.

Whether you’re interested in international marketing, or just want to learn more about how audiences around the world interact with the internet, learning about the top global platforms can be an eye-opening experience.

Below, you’ll explore 17 of the most popular social media platforms around the globe, including TikTok’s origin platform — Douyin.

The 17 Biggest Global Social Media Platforms

1. QZone and QQ

Image Source

• Owner: Tencent
• Origin: China (Available globally, Chinese language-only)
• Name’s Origin: QZone and QQ were shortened from the original name, OICQ. The O stood for “open” while ICQ is an instant message term that sounds like “I Seek You” when said allowed.
• Reported Users: Over 600 million active users on QZone with 574.4 million monthly users on QQ.

QZone is a social media channel while QQ is a messaging app that links to a QZone account. The two apps serve as an alternative to Facebook in countries like China and South Korea, where the U.S. platform is blocked.

The platform’s story began in 1999 when QQ launched as a desktop messaging site. QZone, a social media site and app, launched in 2005.

In 2019, as mobile-first mindsets grew, Tencent transformed the QQ website into a standalone app. QZone still serves as a social media platform while QQ is now similar to the Facebook Messenger app.

To help you better visualize how people have used QQ and QZone, here’s a quick analogy: When U.S. millennials were children, we raced home from school to message our friends on AIM.

Then, as we reached high school, we ventured onto Facebook, where we could message people, create a profile, and post updates.

Meanwhile, in China, people in my age group might have messaged friends on QQ’s messaging website instead of AIM. Now, QQ users might use its sister app — QZone — for a social media experience that’s comparable to Facebook. Then, to message friends, they use QQ.

On QZone today, users are encouraged to publish posts, videos, or even music. Like Facebook, they can also connect with friends, see a feed of updates, comment, share or react to posts, and update cover or profile photos.

The QQ and QZone are great examples of social brands that gained traction long before platforms owned by U.S. tech firms. QQ and QZone users are so strong in China likely because young audiences adopted its messaging tool and were able to enjoy its full social network later on.

Although Facebook launched 2004, one year before QZone came out, Tencent had already captured the millennial demographic with QQ, figured out how to grow its product competitively with QZone, and continued to add features to pull in Gen Z audiences.

While QZone and QQ seem like Facebook alternatives, their history of growth is fairly parallel. And, as one of the biggest social media platforms globally, QQ is worth knowing about if you plan to market in Asian territories with heavy censorship.

2. WeChat/Weixin

Image Source

• Owner: Tencent
• Origin: China (Available globally)
• Name’s Origin: The app’s original name was Weixin, which translates to “micro letters.” In a play to become a more globally used app, Weixin rebranded to WeChat in 2012.
• Reported Users: 1.29 billion active users

WeChat launched in 2011, before competitors like Kik and WhatsApp. The messaging app was rolled out by Tencent, which also created QZone and QQ.

Similarly to WhatsApp, WeChat allows free, text-based chats and voice calls. It also has a “Moments” feature similar to Instagram or Facebook Stories. Like many U.S. platforms, you can place fun animated stickers on images or videos sent within the app.

To join WeChat, users need to know someone on the platform and have them scan an activation code that a user receives when logging in for the first time. Then, they can access WeChat’s messaging feature, send videos to friends, and host virtual phone calls.

Aside from using the platform for friend-to-friend communication, users can also take advantage of more entertaining features.

For example, while one feature allows people to play in-app games live against friends, others include filters that can be used in chats or video calls.

WeChat also connects to a number of third-party or Tencent-owned apps so that a user can take on multiple tasks. You can hail a ride or pay friends money, directly from WeChat.

Image Source

At this point, Facebook, Snapchat, WhatsApp, and other major apps are using a similar strategy, pulling additional features into their platforms to keep users logged in longer.

For example, many top messengers allow group video calls, offer in-app games, or let users send money.

3. Weibo (Sina Weibo)

• Owner: Sina Corp.
• Origin: China (Available globally with text in Chinese.)
• Platform Name Translation: Loosely translates “microblogging.”
• Reported Users: 584 million monthly active users

Weibo, also called Sina Weibo, is the biggest Chinese microblogging and social media platform. The social channel made news in 2017 when it reached more monthly active users than Twitter.

Since then the app’s continued to grow. Reports suggest that more than 30% of Chinese internet users now have an account on the platform.

When you visit the website, it’s automatically in Chinese. However, you can use Google Chrome’s translator to convert the text to different languages.

Image Source

Like Twitter, Weibo offers a central feed where you can see the latest or highest-performing posts. To toggle through different types of posts, you can click a category on the list in the left sidebar.

On the right, you can see “Hot Topics” similar to Twitter’s “Trending Topics.” If you continue to scroll down, you’ll also see a box that allows you to search for people.

Image Source

While Weibo’s layout and microblogging mission are similar to Twitter’s, the Chinese platform emphasizes videos, photos, and trending content, while Twitter still puts an emphasis on the accounts sharing the content.

Although Twitter also prioritizes trending content, you can easily see which of your followers posted, liked, or retweeted it before seeing the content in a tweet.

This allows audiences to subconsciously focus on the person who tweeted something as well as the tweet itself.

These slightly different layouts might also suggest that the audiences of each platform prefer to consume content differently. While Twitter’s audience might prefer the human connection, those on Weibo might want to jump straight to the content.

4. Douyin

• Owner: ByteDance
• Origin Country: China (Available only in China; TikTok is available globally)
• Name’s Origin: Douyin loosely translates to “shaking sound” or “vibrato.”
• Reported Number of Users: 613 million active users

Douyin is the Chinese-only counterpart to TikTok, which is owned by the same company. TikTok specifically is a merger of Douyin and the Musical.ly lip-syncing app. Both social media apps specialize in allowing users to create, edit, and share short-form vertical video.

After Douyin launched in early 2018, it grew to 150 million active users in year one. ByteDance then purchased a similar lip-syncing app called Musical.ly and created TikTok, a global app that merged the best features from each platform.

Since launching in late 2018, TikTok’s also seen viral growth by gaining roughly 1.2 billion active users. Like Douyin, TikTok also sees a large number of international influencers from countries like India.

While Douyin and TikTok are very similar short-video apps and are often confused as the same thing, they have a slightly different sets of features, are powered by different servers, and have different levels of censorship due to regulations around the world.

Douyin isn’t accessible for us to preview in the U.S., but news outlets describe it as being even more advanced than TikTok — particularly when it comes to ecommerce.

For example, while TikTok rolled out advertising options in 2020, Douyin already allowed users to triple-tap a video with a product featured in it to go to a brand’s ecommerce store. Users can also use the app for virtual tours of hotels, stores, or travel locations.

Douyin also reportedly allows users to geotag themselves at a store or location. This could be helpful for providing brand awareness to local brands.

When it comes to what Douyin and TikTok have in common, both are apps where users can share short videos that can feature musical overlays, fun filters, and text.

From photos I’ve dug up online, it looks like the platform’s design is very similar with some slight design differences. The screenshots below show a video ad and the platform’s search feature:

Image Source

As a comparison, here’s what a video ad and the search feature look like on TikTok.

Both apps are also centered around a feed that algorithmically shows users videos from followers or videos that they might enjoy based on previous content they’ve viewed.

When users enter the app and see the feed, one video will begin playing automatically. To see other videos, users simply swipe up on that feed. Here’s what this looks like on TikTok:

Aside from the shared features, both fast-paced social media channels are favored by younger generations. While over 92.39% of TikTok’s audience is younger than 34, it’s also been reported that Gen Z has flocked to Douyin.

Douyin and TikTok’s success story is a great example of how one unique international platform can change the way we consume content in other countries. Prior to TikTok’s launch in the Western hemisphere, many Americans hadn’t seen anything similar to it since Vine.

Not only did Douyin and TikTok replace the need for Vine, but both apps also catered to Gen-Z and millennials, two mobile-first generations known for short online attention spans and heavy consumption of video content.

5. Kuaishou

• Owner: Kuaishou Technologies
• Country of Origin: China
• Name Origin: No translation could be found.
• Number of users: 308.2 million daily active users

Kuaishou is a short-video app that competes with Douyin. This platform started as a GIF-sharing site called Kuaishou GIF. It was like GIPHY in the sense that anyone could create, post, and share GIFs on the network.

In 2012, Kuaishou dropped GIF from its name and pivoted to a short video platform. Its interface is now very similar to Instagram’s.

Kuaishou doesn’t have a “Stories” feature like Instagram, but it features similarly looking profiles and feeds where users share short vertical videos rather than photos or other content.

Image Source

Like Douyin or TikTok, the video features of Kuaishou seem fairly similar in that users can leverage sound bites and basic editing tools in their content.

Like many social media platforms with videos, Kuaishou also allows users to overlay text and stickers on images or videos.

Image Source

From looking at a variety of videos that have been uploaded to other sites from this platform, it seems like many users have used this app to highlight their unique skills and musical talent.

A number of users have also shared videos that highlight and celebrate aspects of rural China.

In 2019, Apple distinguished Kuaishou as a global app that was defining mobile video storytelling trends. This came shortly after the app notably added ecommerce and monetization features that enabled creators in poverty-stricken rural China to make money from it.

Aside from its short videos, Kuaishou also allows users to live stream content on the platform. Similar to the short video feature, the stream has allowed users to film longer videos that highlight their skills.

6. VKontakte (VK)

• Owner: Mail.Ru Group
• Country of Origin: Russia
• Name’s English Translation: VKontakte loosely translates to “in contact with.”
• Reported Number of Users: 67 million users

VK, the biggest social channel in Russia, is like a mix between Facebook, YouTube, and the 90s illegal downloading service LimeWire. This platform allows users to publish and share text-based posts, photos, video files, and music files with their connections.

When it comes to this platform’s user interface, it looks eerily similar to Facebook, with some slight tweaks to page layouts.

Image Source

Aside from allowing users to share their own content, they can allegedly upload and stream copyrighted material, such as music and movies. This has allegedly been abundant on the platform since its launch, but legal steps have not been taken against it.

The social platform is owned by Mail.Ru Group, a tech company that owns Russia’s main search engines and OK.RU, a social platform noted below. Reports also suggest that this company has affiliations with the Russian government.

Surprisingly, the majority of VK users are between the ages of 25 and 34.

This popularity could be due to multiple reasons, including the platform’s ability to allow users to share audio and video files between friends. The platform also encourages users to expand their social circles and not limit themselves to the ones they’re already in.

7. Odnoklassniki (OK.RU)

• Owner: Mail.Ru Group
• Country of Origin: Russia
• Name’s English Translation: Odnoklassniki translates to “classmate.”
• Reported Number of Users: 33.8 monthly active users

Odnoklassniki, or OK.RU, is a website that specializes in connecting people with their past classmates. The social media platform is set up like a blog, similar to Tumblr, where users can share life updates, images, or videos, which then show up in other users’ home page feeds.

Along with their classmates’ content, a sidebar shows users the most popular videos that have been posted on the platform.

Below is a look at the feed. While the site is in Russian, I’ve used Google Chrome to translate it so you can get a better idea of what people are posting.

Image Source

Like Tumblr, users can also click on the name or image of another user in a post to find that person’s profile.

These profiles are similar to Facebook’s layout in that they show a cover photo, a user’s top followers (called “participants”), and then a feed of their own content.

While this platform is similar to both Tumblr and Facebook, Russian citizens don’t commonly use those two platforms as much as OK.RU.

Additionally, with warnings that Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram could be banned in Russia, it’s not shocking that tech companies in this region have innovated to create similar alternative platforms.

As we’ve seen with the Chinese platforms above, many global platforms have been inspired by or created as an alternative to U.S.-based sites that were censored or banned.

These continent-specific platforms could be a theme we continue seeing in different areas of the world.

If you’re an international marketer, it can be helpful to identify segments of your audience that might not be able to access the platforms you use for social media marketing. Then, research any alternatives that you can access to promote your content in those locations.

8. Telegram

• Owner: Telegram Group Inc.
• Origin: UAE
• Name’s Origin: Named after the telegram system, coined by Charles Wheatstone in 1834.
• Reported Users: 700 million monthly active users

Telegram is a cloud-based messaging platform founded in 2013 by Nikolai and Pavel Durov, who also previously founded VK. Known for its end-to-end encryption and focus on privacy, Telegram tends to grow in popularity every time another app experiences a security breach.

The app was launched as an alternative to WhatsApp when the latter announced it would share user information with its parent company, Meta. As it serves as a secure alternative to WhatsApp, Telegram’s interface looks quite similar to the one we’re used to.

Image Source

At first glance, you might not be able to tell the difference between WhatsApp and Telegram because they look very similar in their basic text messaging capabilities.

But Telegram takes WhatsApp’s features up a notch with chat folders that help you organize conversations, open API that allows you to build your own Telegram clients, and no sim sign-up to protect your phone number from public view.

Open API also enables you to create Telegram Bots that automate tasks and respond to user messages.

What’s also interesting about Telegram is its “Secret Chat” feature which allows users to send messages set to self-destruct after a certain period and leave no trace on its servers.

The app also allows you to create chat channels with up to 200,000 members, compared to WhatsApp’s current 1,024, and lets you send media with no limits on size or type.

Previously completely free, Telegram launched its Premium tier in 2022. Features such as voice-to-text, doubled limits on channels, chat folders, chats, unique stickers and reactions are available for you to explore on Telegram Premium.

Telegram currently has 70 million active users in India, 24 million in Russia, 19 million in Indonesia, and 18 million in Brazil. The app also allows sponsored ads in some regions, so it’s worth exploring if you’re interested in expanding your presence in these countries.

9. LIKEE

• Owner: JOYY Inc.
• Origin: China
• Name’s Origin: Previously named Like, the founders changed the name in 2019 and added an extra “e” to convey the additional value it offered after it was redesigned and rebranded.
• Reported Users: 150 million monthly active users

TikTok’s rise to fame may have been meteoric, but it’s not the only video-sharing social media platform on the block. Singapore-based Bigo Technologies (owned by JOYY Inc.) launched LIKEE in 2017 as a competitor to TikTok.

LIKEE is a short video-sharing platform that’s gained huge traction since its launch. It focuses on content from young users and celebrities who use the hashtag challenge feature to create viral videos for the app.

Like TikTok, the app features an AI-powered algorithm that recommends content relevant to each user’s interests. LIKEE also has filters, special effects, and tools to help users create content.

In 2018, LIKEE was one of 59 Chinese apps banned in India due to the rising tensions between the two countries. Before this, India was the biggest market for LIKEE, where it was available in 15 Indian languages, including Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, Marathi, and Telugu.

LIKEE seems pretty similar to TikTok on the surface, but what sets it apart is its creator monetization tools.

Image Source

The LIKEE Official Creator program, for example, gives creators access to different benefits, such as invites to exclusive events and promotions on the LIKEE popular page based on their “crown” level.

The app also focuses on live streaming. LIKEE creates a more immersive live streaming experience by allowing creators to create personalized 3D avatars of themselves and allowing them to create and join online communities.

Image Source

While TikTok is still leading the charge as the most popular short-video-sharing platform, LIKEE is slowly gaining ground and may just be the next big thing.

10. LINE

• Owner: Line Corporation
• Origin: South Korea
• Name’s Origin: No origin could be found.
• Reported Users: 182 million monthly active users

If there’s a powerhouse app that seems to be doing everything, it’s LINE.

The South Korean messaging app was launched as a response to the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami to help users communicate with each other despite network outages.

It quickly gained traction, becoming one of the biggest messaging tools in Asia.

Image Source

The messaging tool integrates with a suite of services ranging from payments with LINE Pay, telemedicine with LINE Doctor, and music streaming with LINE Music.

Image Source

The app’s stickers are their own cultural phenomenon. They’re so popular that you can actually buy real-life merchandise of them on the LINE Friends Store.

Image Source

The Creators Market also provides users with a platform to monetize their sticker creations and sell them on the LINE Sticker Shop, LINE Theme Shop, and LINE STORE.

LINE’s primary website is in English. Many of its subsidiary websites, including LINE for Business and LINE News, are in Japanese.

LINE’s integration with other aspects of its ecosystem is a great way for businesses to reach new audiences and build loyalty with existing ones.

It also eliminates the need for users to switch between an array of apps, creating a streamlined experience and reducing distractions.

11. Douban

• Owner: Beijing Douwang Technology Co., Ltd.
• Origin: China
• Name’s Origin: Named after a hutong, or narrow lane, in Beijing. The literal translation of Douban is “an embryonic leaf.”
• Reported Users: 300 million users

Douban is a popular social networking platform originating in China. It was created by Yang Bo in 2005 and has since grown to be one of the largest online social networks in the country.

The platform allows users to communicate, share their interests, and rate films, books, music, and other content. On Douban, users can follow each other, create a profile, post and comment on discussion boards, discover new content, and get recommendations.

Douban is available in Chinese, but here’s a translated preview of its homepage.

Dubbed the “Chinese version of IMDb” due to its focus on movies and film reviews, Douban is also known for being one of the few Chinese social networks that allows political discussions, although censorship is still enforced.

The platform hosts many events and activities, such as meetups, lectures, film screenings, and festivals. It also has an online radio station called Radio Douban which allows users to tune in and listen to music from different sources.

Douban boasts a lively online community for young and educated Chinese users engaged in literary and film discussions. It’s also proven popular among young people as it allows them to express their views, stay connected, and discover new content.

In 2022, the app tightened its policies and now requires overseas users to register with a mainland mobile phone number or official identity document to continue using the platform. In short, anyone who wants to use Douban must prove their identity.

Beijing’s increasing censorship may be tricky to navigate for brands trying to tap into this educated and affluent demographic, yet it’s still possible to have success on Douban if done right.

12. Baidu Tieba

• Owner: Baidu
• Origin: China
• Name’s Origin: Baidu Tieba — the word Tieba is simply the pronunciation of the Chinese word “贴吧”, a made-up word that translates to “Let’s Post.” The word Tieba has its meaning extended to the word “forum” or “group” as well.
• Reported Users: 45 million monthly active users

Tieba is one of the largest Chinese discussion forum networks. The parent company, Baidu, also owns one of the biggest search engines in the world, with 3.3 billion searches per day. Established in 2003, Tieba is a forum-style interactive community where users can share content and discuss topics of common interest.

Tieba offers a wide range of features for users, such as customizable avatars, special effects, and tools to help you customize your posts. There are also an extensive array of filters that allow you to search for posts by keywords or tags.

Every Tieba, or individual community, has its primary coordinator, usually referred to as the “administrator” or the “moderator” in English. This coordinator is responsible for keeping the forum safe and orderly.

Tieba’s user-generated, content-driven nature makes it an ideal platform for businesses to engage with their customers, build relationships, and find out what their customers think.

The platform uses two aspects — experience points and account level — to assess the quality of its users. The more you engage on the platform and interact with other users, the higher the account level and the more experience points you’ll gain.

Baidu Tieba had accumulated over 300 million monthly active users, and its registered users skyrocketed to 1.5 billion by 2015.

By 2021, however, the Reddit-style platform lost 90% of its users due to issues such as lack of management and excessive commercialization. With 45 million active users, it still has considerable potential to establish itself as a major player in the market.

The website is in Chinese, and you’ll have to use Google’s translate feature to access its content.

The central feed displays hot topics and discussions. Users can scroll through these topics to find relevant information, join in on existing conversations, or create new ones.

The feed also displays news at the top, which you can click on to stay updated with recent events.

13. BeReal

• Owner: Alexis Barreyat and Kevin Perreau
• Origin: France
• Name’s Origin: The name relates to its focus on users uploading unpolished photos.
• Reported Users: 73.5 million monthly active users

BeReal, a French anti-influencer social media app launched in 2020, only allows users to post pictures and videos that are unedited and unfiltered to promote “authenticity.” The app discourages users from curating a version of themselves that’s impossible to attain.

BeReal notifies users to take a picture in two minutes using their front and back cameras simultaneously with a location and optional caption.

While other users can’t like or dislike a post, they can comment. You can also react to posts with a “RealMoji,” which is a picture of your own face.

The app is most popular in the U.S., followed by France and the U.K. BeReal’s monthly active users increased by more than 300% in 2022.

Gen Z, currently the largest generation on Earth, seems to have a liking for BeReal’s more realistic approach.

Image Source

In a recent article, Meredith Mueller, a sophomore at the University of Kansas, highlights how, unlike Instagram or Snapchat, BeReal offers a pressure-free experience.

“Snapchat is more like you’re sending this to one person, if you post on your story, you’re trying to look good,” she said. “Whereas this is like … wherever you’re at, whatever you’re doing, you stop in the moment and all your friends can see it. It’s more like a down-to-earth app. I would say it’s like a judgment-free zone.”

BeReal currently doesn’t offer any advertising or monetization opportunities for brands. Brands like e.l.f. Cosmetics and Chipotle launched brand accounts last year and built followings with discount codes.

Still, with the app’s spontaneous nature and BeReal’s determination to maintain its philosophy of authenticity, it would be interesting to see how brands adopt it.

What’s clear is that Gen Z loves this authenticity, and brands must be innovative to create a presence on the platform.

14. Moj

• Owner: Mohalla Tech
• Origin: India
• Name’s Origin: The name is a spin on the Hindi word “mauj,” which means entertainment.
• Reported Users: 120 million monthly active users

Thirty hours after India banned 59 Chinese apps due to ongoing tensions with China on June 29, 2020, the Indian social media platform ShareChat launched Moj.

The app was designed to replicate TikTok, thus offering a similar user experience with features, such as 15-second videos and special effects. Within three days of its launch, Moj amassed 50,000 downloads.

India, the country with the largest population in the world, has 22 official languages. Moj supports over 15 languages, including English, Bengali, Hindi, Gujarati, Kannada, and Malayalam.

Like TikTok, users can lip sync, create digital art, and use AI-powered effects. The app also features interest-based content recommendations and live streaming.

Since Moj is a TikTok replica, its interface looks almost the same as TikTok. It has a home page, which displays trending and recent videos, and also allows users to browse content in different categories.

Users can browse the app without having to register. To start creating and sharing content, however, they must sign up with their phone number or Facebook account.

“Moj for Creators,” a program launched in April 2022, aims to help creators earn Rs 3,500 crore by 2025 with new monetizable features.

These features include performance-based weekly rewards, brand collaborations, creator courses, an exclusive creator club, and a dedicated creator manager to help creators grow.

Image Source

Aside from this, Moj Live also allows users to earn money and rewards by live streaming their content. Creators can engage with their audience in real-time and send virtual gifts.

Despite its efforts, Indian creators think local alternatives like Moj come nowhere close to the level of recognition that TikTok offered.

Nevertheless, Moj has gained immense popularity in India and offers global businesses a gateway to a diverse and fast-growing market.

15. Xiaohongshu

• Owner: Xingyin Information Technology
• Origin: China
• Name’s Origin: Xiaohongshu translates to “Little Red Book.”
• Reported Users: 158 million monthly active users

The Chinese answer to Instagram, Xiaohongshu (also known as Little Red Book or RED) is a content-driven, ecommerce platform that connects local and international Chinese consumers to brands.

Xiaohongshu was created by Miranda Qu and Charlwin Mao in 2013 and has since become a leader in the user-generated content (UGC) space.

When it first launched, WeChat and Weibo dominated the Chinese social media landscape. Xiaohongshu tapped into the young Chinese urban women’s market by providing a platform for them to read product reviews, share user experiences, and discover new products.

The app currently focuses on beauty, fashion, lifestyle, and travel. Today, 70% of its user base are women.

RED’s focus on products and shopping makes it popular among the Chinese elite. Chinese shoppers will make up 40% of all luxury consumers by 2030. The app taps into the buying power of affluent Chinese millennials and provides valuable insights into their shopping habits.

Xiaohongshu’s main feed has three tabs: Follow, Explore, and Nearby. Even though the app is similar to Instagram, its “Nearby” feature is unique and allows users to discover new places, products, and trends around their location.

The app’s post tool also offers more editing features than Instagram, including beautify.

The Explore tab includes categories such as weight loss, manicures, cosmetics, mother-baby, and emotion, showing how RED uses traditionally female-focused topics to create engaging content.

Xiaohongshu allows brands to have their storefronts on the app, which users can access to find out more about the brand and purchase their products.

RED’s focus on a niche female demographic, ecommerce capabilities, and unique content make it a valuable platform for brands looking to reach the Chinese market.

Brands can partner with local influencers to spread awareness, sell products, and engage with the audience.

16. Yubo

• Owner: TWELVE APP
• Origin: France
• Name’s Origin: The app was previously named Yellow and it has since rebranded to Yubo.
• Reported Users: 60 million users

Another French social media app that’s rising in popularity among Gen Z is Yubo. Launched in 2015 by Sacha Lazimi, Jérémie Aouate, and Arthur Patora, the app aims to create a space for young people to meet new friends and find their community.

Yubo, formerly known as Yellow, was created with an emphasis on safety, openness, and inclusiveness. The app is aimed at teenagers and encourages users to create groups, share photos and videos, chat with friends, play games, and even live stream.

For some time, Yubo was known as the “Tinder for Teens” due to its swipe-based interface. Users can choose who they want to connect with based on their interests and profiles.

The platform attempts to keep its younger and older users separate with two disconnected communities — one for young people aged 13 to 17 and an adult community for people aged 18 and above.

Separate communities prevent users in one community from interacting with users in the other community.

In the past, Yubo faced backlash due to its security issues, including the ability of adults to create and use fake accounts.

However, Yubo has since implemented measures such as partnering with digital identity provider Yoti to help vet suspicious users and manage ID verification. In 2022, Yubo also rolled out age “estimating” technology to better identify minors.

Users can use the in-app currency, YuBucks, to make purchases, such as adding an extra number of new friends or boosting their profile to get more visibility. Yubo also features ads, which users can opt to skip or watch in exchange for YuBucks.

Image Source

Yubo has a partnership with Snapchat revolving around the Snapchat Camera Kit, which allows the platform and its creators to use Snapchat’s filter system and features. Yubo also creates game filters you can play with, like on Snapchat.

Image Source

17. Rakuten Viber

• Owner: Rakuten
• Origin: Israel
• Name’s Origin: No origin was found.
• Reported Users: 260 million monthly active users

Viber is a free messaging and calling app created in 2010 by two Israeli brothers, Talmon Marco and Igor Megzinik.

Viber quickly gained popularity due to its intuitive interface, seamless syncing across devices, encryption, HD audio and video calls, and an extensive array of stickers.

In 2014, Rakuten, the world’s third-largest ecommerce company acquired Viber for $900 million.

Since then, the app has made significant improvements, such as introducing video and voice messaging, payments, games, and even its own currency called “Vibes.”

The platform has users in 190 countries, and its registered users have surpassed 260 million monthly active users. Here’s a preview of Viber’s feed.

Image Source

As you can see, you also have a “My Notes” tab that allows you to write notes and memos.

Image Source

Viber also has an extensive array of features that make it great for business use. It provides collaboration tools such as polls, surveys, and document sharing, among others.

Viber Business offers a range of tools to help companies reach their customers, such as allowing transactions, offering real-time customer support, and sending relevant messages and promotions.

In January 2023, Viber launched a Business Inbox, which allows you to organize and filter messages from commercial businesses such as delivery services, stores, and banks.

The app’s mobile-focused features, such as a quick registration process, easy contact updates, one-tap calling, and integrated mission services, make it an excellent option for businesses looking to engage with customers on the go.

The Similarities of Global Social Platforms

Despite their critical differences, social media industries around the world have some fascinating similarities to that of the U.S.

For example, while many of North America’s most prominent social media apps are owned by Facebook or were created in Silicon Valley, most prominent global platforms were created by Tencent or other major tech firms based in China. Similarly, the two biggest Russian platforms are owned by the same company.

Although many of the apps above were created and launched in highly censored areas, they don’t seem to be falling behind on innovation due to those regulations.

Because international social platforms have evolved on a similar timeline as many common U.S. platforms, it seems like these geographies are building their own parallel social media industries, rather than just racing to create alternatives to our own platforms.

One thing major difference is that many of the examples on this list emphasize direct communication more than content.

Meanwhile, our own platforms emphasize content and user experience. While every social media platform we use today does have messenger with various features, only a few of them are or were ever standalone messengers.

For example, QZone and WeChat built their initial audiences as messenger apps and broadened their features from there. Meanwhile, Snapchat and WhatsApp are the only top platforms that started as direct messengers.

While Facebook Messenger is one of the most prominent text messaging platforms, it is an expansion of Facebook’s original News Feed-centered platform.

Going Global

If you’re interested in reaching international audiences, you should pay attention to the social media platforms they most commonly use, and what they use them for.

This will give you insight on what types of content these groups engage with, what motivates them, and what strategies could persuade buying decisions.

If you want to tap into an international audience, but can’t access some of the platforms on this list, you can alternatively consider testing out a campaign on a globally accessible platform like WhatsApp and WeChat.

Welcome to HubSpot Marketing News! Tap in for campaign deep dives, the latest marketing industry news, and tried-and-true insights from HubSpot’s media team. 

Wendy’s has been serving up sass on social media since 2017.

It all started on Twitter. After the official Twitter account of Mcdonald’s mistakenly shared a tweet with typos, Wendy’s quote tweeted the post saying, “When the tweets are as broken as the ice cream machine.”

The success of this tweet marked the beginning of a new social media strategy for the fast food chain — roasting other accounts.

Wendy’s first National Roast Day was in 2018. Twitter users could drop a Tweet asking to be roasted and the official Wendy’s account would counter with a ruthless response. No Twitter account was safe, and the made-up social media holiday became an annual affair that was a massive success.

In 2022, National Roast Day generated over 130 million impressions in a matter of hours and made Wendy’s an instant trending topic on Twitter.

This year, Wendy’s moved National Roast Day from Twitter to TikTok, turning it into a three-day event from April 12-14  (previously, it was limited to 24 hours). To participate, TikTok users posted videos asking Wendy’s to roast them. The official Wendy’s account then responded with stitched videos delivering roasts from an animated “Wendy.”

If the comment section was any indication, this year’s roast didn’t bring the heat.

Under the roast videos, comparisons to the company’s previous roasts on Twitter were frequently mentioned. Users left comments such as:

• “how is your roast colder than your fries”
• “the Twitter guy is on vacation”
• “Twitter Wendy’s needs to roast TikTok Wendy’s”
• “This person AIN’T the same as Wendy’s Twitter”

Here are a few reasons why the latest roast felt lukewarm compared to previous years.

TikTok’s Strict Community Guidelines

Compared to Twitter, TikTok has more strict community guidelines around what is considered bullying or harassment. Content that is deemed too harsh can quickly be taken down from the video platform, adding limitations to what Wendy’s could say during the roast.

Video Delivery

Sharing roasts via text on Twitter allows a bit more room for interpretation. Users can read the tweets sarcastically or imagine a specific voice delivering the roast. With an animated character delivering the roast, there’s less room for interpretation and the jokes are more difficult to land.

It’s worth noting there were a few gems shared on National Roast Day, like this video directed at AdAge that marketers can appreciate.

Though video presents unique challenges to delivering the type of humor Wendy’s is known for, moving National Roast Day to TikTok was likely a valuable experiment that will help Wendy’s social team hone in on its short-form video strategy.

While the roasts may not have been hot, the stats around National Roast Day 2023 were still impressive. During the three-day roast, Wendy’s shared 111 videos garnering over 109 million views and counting.

Elsewhere in Marketing

The latest marketing news and strategy insights.

Digital ad revenue grew in 2022. However, the growth was noticeably slower than 2021. 

Can YouTube Shorts help creators grow on YouTube? Check out this study analyzing over 5,400 videos. 

Meta rolled out a Reels hub on Instagram to help creators identify trending audio and hashtags. The Reels editing tool has also received enhancements. 

TikTok ban: lawmakers in Montana voted to ban TikTok on personal devices within the state.

Instagram isn’t dead: why marketers are continuing to prioritize the platform.

Case study: how MrBeast has garnered millions of views, and what marketers can learn from him.

Are the robots taking over? It’s a question many people wonder as artificial intelligence gains prominence in our daily lives — especially in marketing.

The market for AI in marketing is likely to hit $107.5 billion by 2028, a massive increase from $15.84 billion in 2021. 

What could this mean for marketers and content creators? Is there a place for AI in content creation, and can it benefit marketing creatives? To answer this question, I spoke to several content creators who use AI. 

I also compared their experiences to data from HubSpot’s recent State of AI survey, in which we asked over 1,350 professionals about their experience with AI. Here’s what I found. 

How are Creators and Marketers Using AI? 

According to our survey, 33% of marketers who use AI use it to generate ideas or inspiration for marketing content. 

One way AI can be used for ideas or inspiration is by creating a mood board with tools like Kive.ai. Filmmaker and photographer Mateo Toro recently started using Kive.ai to design mood boards to develop treatments for his film projects. 

A video treatment is a way to convey a project’s concept or story. Many video treatments involve the use of images and visual media found online or in previous works. 

“Video treatments take time. You have to scrub through the video, to take screenshots, and edit for the video treatment,” Toro explained. “[Kive.ai] just makes it so much easier for me to find the video that has a style or tone I’m looking to emulate.”

With Kive.ai, creators can paste the link of a video into the system, and Kive.ai will extract frames from the video as screenshots to import into a board. Toro says the process can save him hours of time. 

“In a video treatment, I could be going through 10, 15, 20 videos to reference,” he said. “You add that up, and it could easily be an hour of time just scrubbing through, screenshotting, and dragging content to a treatment.”

AI can also generate ideas for blog content. For example, HubSpot’s content assistant AI can create a list of blog topic ideas and develop outlines centered around specific concepts. 

Besides inspiration, the second-most common use of AI is writing copy for marketing materials. Our survey found 28% of marketers who are using AI leverage the tool to write materials such as blog posts and emails.

For example, Bethany Anderson, a public information officer for Milton, Florida, says ChatGBT streamlines the writing aspect of her job.

“I love it because ChatGBT is a software that learns,” Anderson explains. 

She says ChatGBT can mimic her writing style, so she’ll sometimes use the tool to write press releases, social media posts, and SEO-friendly blog content. 

Anderson says the tool is handy because writing is a crucial part of her job, but it’s far from the only responsibility she has to tackle daily.

“I am behind the scenes planning events and getting them out to the public,” she says. “So, ChatGBT allows me to get the writing done in a very easy, seamless way so that I can get to the bones of my job — which is outreach.”

Anderson admits she was wary of ChatGBT at first but tested it out during a week that was jam-packed with deadlines. 

“There was this one week a couple of months ago when I had so many deadlines, so many social media calendars due, so many blogs due, and so many bios due — I was drowning,” she recalls. “So I said, ‘I’m going to give it a try.'” 

Days worth of writing assignments could be completed in just a few hours thanks to the assistance of AI, according to Anderson.

Her experience aligns with the findings of our survey — 75% of marketers said generative AI helps them create more content than they would without it.

And 77% agreed generative AI could help create content more efficiently.

“We’re talking about days of your life that you get back,” she said. “And, to me, time is valuable. It’s more valuable than money.”

Will AI Replace Content Creators?

A common concern surrounding the use of AI is whether the technology will replace human marketers and creators. Nima Olumi of Lightyear Strategies says it’s unlikely.

“We use AI to pull a lot of statistics, come up with interesting angles to pitch to companies, and work around certain angles that are marketing and media-friendly,” Olumi said. “I don’t think it’s a complete replacement for writers or thinkers.”

Writing and content creation are subjective fields, according to Olumi, and they still require people to do the necessary critical thinking to decide the kind of content that gets published. 

Ultimately, Olumi predicts a future where AI will assist marketers and creatives in improving their output and producing content in a shorter time.

This makes sense, considering our survey found that 77% of marketers agree that generative AI will help marketers create content more efficiently. 

And 79% agree generative AI can improve the quality of the content they create. 

Olumi encourages professionals to embrace AI and use it to their advantage rather than shy away.

Specifically, he says creators should spend time learning and testing applications like Open.ai and ChatGBT to see their different capabilities. 

“Spend hours asking question after question to see how far you can push the limits of the application to serve your needs,” he said. “You have to feed it context.”

As the presence of AI in marketing continues to grow significantly, you’ll want to take the time to discover how it can best serve your own team’s needs.

Professionals and creatives like Olumi, Anderson, and Toro all found ways to use AI to help them improve the efficiency and quality of their content. 

Instead of worrying whether the robots will take over, find ways to work alongside AI so you and your company can remain competitive in the market and essential to your clients. 

Welcome to Breaking the Blueprint — a blog series that dives into the unique business challenges and opportunities of underrepresented business owners and entrepreneurs. Learn how they’ve grown or scaled their businesses, explored entrepreneurial ventures within their companies, or created side hustles, and how their stories can inspire and inform your own success.

This piece is in collaboration with HubSpot Podcast Network’s Amplifying Voices campaign partnership with The Gathering Spot.

In 2019, Charli D’Amelio shared a video on TikTok doing the Renegade dance. The video blew up and is inarguably her claim to fame. Since then, she’s amassed 150M followers on the app, done brand deals with household names, and her family has an unscripted reality docuseries called The D’Amelio Show.

Thousands of TikTokers followed her lead, did the dance, and attributed it to D’Amelio, but she didn’t create it — Jalaiah Harmon did. Harmon’s erasure from her dance is attributed to racial bias as she’s Black and D’Amelio is White.

Harmon’s experience is just one of thousands, as many Black content creators face inequalities, from receiving credit for trends to late payments to algorithm biases. In this post, we’ll delve deeper into some of these inequalities and share expert advice from Natasha Pierre and Ross Simmonds on overcoming these roadblocks.

Table of Contents

• Discrepancies Experienced By Black Content Creators – Key Stats
• Discrepancies Experienced By Black Content Creators (+ Expert Thoughts)
• How can Black content creators rise above discrepancies? ( + Expert Advice)

Discrepancies Experienced By Black Content Creators — Key Stats

• Black influencers in the nano and micro-influencer tiers (under 50k followers) average $27,000 annual compensation. (MSL)
• Black macro-influencers (50k+ followers) received an average of over $100,000 compensation from brands. (MSL)
• 49% of Black influencers reported that their race contributed to an offer below market value from a brand. (MSL)
• The pay gap margin between white and Black influencers is 35%. (MSL)
• 79% of Black influencers feel comfortable posting about diversity issues, but more than half feel they’re negatively impacted by posting about these issues, whereas only 14% of White influencers feel the same way. (MSL)
• 58.3% of influencers say they’ve been discriminated against as an influencer on any social platform. (Influencer Marketing Hub)
• Influencers say that TikTok has the worst discrimination they’ve faced. (Influencer Marketing Hub)

Discrepancies Experienced By Black Content Creators (+ Expert Thoughts)

1. Pay Disparities

Black influencers are paid 35% less than White influencers. Most of the time that means creators aren’t getting paid what they’re worth, and sometimes they’re being paid late. There’s also a lack of pay transparency, so Black creators don’t know what others are getting paid if they’re being shorted and what to negotiate for.

92% of influencers responding to MSL’s Time to Face the Influencer Pay Gap research study said that pay transparency could be the single most crucial factor in eliminating the racial pay gap in the creator economy.

Expert Thoughts

Natasha Pierre hosts the Shine Online Podcast and is a content creator. She’s also CEO of Shine With Natasha, where she helps creators build video confidence. She says, “The influencer marketing landscape is growing so much, and it’s still so new, but I still think it’s comical that a brand would be like, ‘We’ll pay you a few hundred bucks to do a million things under the sun.’”

Pierre has received late payments herself: “I was speaking at an event that was supposed to be for women of color, and I got paid months late. And I’m like, isn’t this what we’re trying to avoid here?” She adds that even being considered for opportunities, let alone being able to negotiate and talk about rates, can be challenging.

2. Lack of opportunities.

Antoni Bumba, a Black creator, said that she and her friend (who is White) once sent an email to the same company at the same time to set up a partnership. The brand sent her White friend gifts, and Bumba was told the brand was at capacity for gifting.

Victoria Paris, a White creator and one of Bumba’s friends, shared a video saying that she reaps the benefits of being a White creator, and the root of the issue comes from brands’ PR managers being primarily White and being aware of influencers that look like them and share the same experiences.

Paris says people don’t understand the gravity of the situation and just think, “Oh this sucks,” but it’s a significant career obstacle for influencers that don’t look like her. For example, she says she’s been able to save a lot of money to put back into her content and career because she gets free things, but creators of color don’t have the same luxury.

Many Black creators might not know they’re missing out on opportunities because people who offer the opportunities don’t have them on their radar. They won’t know that a brand wants to establish a relationship until they see a sponsored post from another creator on their feed.

Expert Thoughts

Ross Simmonds hosts Create Like the Greats and is an entrepreneur and marketing strategist that helps B2B brands and entrepreneurs unlock new levels of growth. He says, “I think the biggest challenge is that you [Black creators] don’t even see what opportunities you get overseen for…You’ll never know what you didn’t get because of what you look like.”

Pierre seconds this and says a lack of opportunities is one of the biggest discrepancies. With algorithm biases (which we’ll cover below), Black creators will get less engagement because of the bias, so their counterparts are “Just naturally going to be picked over other options.”

3. Algorithm Biases

Algorithm biases are unconfirmed, but Black creators report feeling the effects. Many say their content doesn’t perform as well as other creators, even if it is of the same quality. Some report their content performs worse if they talk about racial equality.

MIT Technology Review says TikTok’s algorithm has errors that disproportionately impact marginalized groups and reached out to TikTok for comment. The business said the issues were created in error and affected content wasn’t actually violating policies.

Casey Fesiler, a University of Colorado, Boulder professor studying technology ethics and online communities, told Technology Review, “Many of these errors would be easy to predict if companies simply thought more about how users would interact with their app.”

Expert Thoughts

Pierre says clients in her program have experienced algorithm bias. She was reviewing a competitor analysis with one of her clients, a Latina creator, who said, “Why is this person growing so much faster? Our content feels so similar; we’re in the same industry…is it because she’s a white woman?” and Pierre responded that, honestly, it probably is.

How can Black content creators rise above discrepancies? ( + Expert Advice)

Black creators are often left to figure out how to make it in the creator economy on their own. Given this, we asked Simmonds and Pierre what they suggest people do to rise above the challenges and achieve the growth they want.

1. Build community with other Black creators.

A great way for Black creators to build themselves up is to find community with other Black creators. You’ll get to know other people with the same experiences, and you can use your different backgrounds to help each other out.

Simmonds says, “The internet is an amazing place to find other people who are creators, and you can create some amazing relationships with people in a similar world as you.” He adds, “There are a lot more people that are Black that are creating things online, so it’s easier to find someone to look up to.”

2. Show up for people in your community.

Pierre says that the simple act of showing up for people in your same groups can make a difference — “We just need to be taking up space and building our own networks and continuing to show up for our communities and advocate for your own communities as well.”

When you build community connections, you can bring people up with you. Simmonds says he enjoys creating a path for others: “I want to be able to create content that helps other creators create great content and helps people see the opportunities and the potential to open doors.”

Pierre says that if she’s asked to be part of a campaign or speaker lineup, she could ask who else is part of it and if the organizers need her to recommend other creators in the category. She says the excitement of being invited or considered can make it easy to forget about the impact of creators’ voices and how they can support others’ careers.

Having a network of creators who support, uplift, and share each other’s content can expose people to new audiences eager to follow people and consume new content.

3. Learn from others and their experiences.

Meeting your first creator milestone can feel like a long and drawn-out process, but learning from others can give you actionable, helpful tips.

Consume content from all different creators and learn what works for them and how you can apply their strategies to your own. You’ll get exposed to new ideas and inputs, and what you learn can help you come up with new and unique stories nobody has told yet.

Simmonds says, “I always try to say that everyone can learn from every creator, even if they have a thousand followers. I get inspired by a random mommy blogger; I get inspired by a random psychologist; I’ll get inspired by a therapist on Instagram who puts up posts that are inspiring; I follow business folks…everyone.”

4. Focus on what you can control.

Black creators sometimes have to focus on what they can control. For instance, while you may want to partner with larger brands, it might not be possible at your current level.

As an example, Pierre notes that small brands struggle to find opportunities just as small creators do: “There are so many small brands that are doing such great things. Of course, smaller brands are going to have less budgets, but when there are opportunities to partner with those smaller brands, I think that’s a way to show how things can be done differently.” By partnering with a smaller brand, you’re building your influence and community in a more attainable way.

Focusing on what you can control also means recognizing when an opportunity doesn’t mean your standards and abilities. Simmonds says, “You have to focus on your circle of control…I can control the fact that I’ll probably decline if I don’t think something isn’t fair…otherwise it becomes a very draining industry and a mental tax that I don’t believe is oftentimes worth paying.”

5. Ask for what you’re worth.

Asking for what you know you’re worth can seem scary because of the potential for rejection.

But you only know if you ask. Simmonds says, “I’ve found that you will be pleasantly surprised if you do ask for what you deserve…they’re either going to say yes or no.” If they say no, they probably aren’t a brand you want to be associated with anyways. “Walk away and be okay with that,” he adds.

Your community networks can also be helpful as you can ask around and see what other people are getting paid for opportunities. Simmonds says he’s asked before: “If I know someone who’s engaged in these organizations or is also working for them, I’m not afraid to send a DM and ask people what they got paid before I give a quote, and I get clarity on what I should be offering.”

Black content creators can still find success and thrive.

The discrepancies that Black creators in the creator economy face can seem like a neverending uphill and discouraging battle.

But, the more people have conversations about these issues and put brands and organizations in check, the more likely they are to be better in the future. Pierre says, “Some [brands] will always be trash..but at least we know who to support and who not to support.”