Why Telegram Encryption Is Different

I am a big believer that where there is a network or a platform there are hundreds of people trying to work out if it will fit their use case, how they hack it for their use case or how to leverage it for their own gain.

Chat apps are no different. WhatsApp dominates Europe, WeChat dominates China, smaller iMessage groups still dominate the US, and Telegram is an essential resource in Russia and Ukraine.
Importantly, Telegram has captured several organisers, online personalities, and celebrities for its rich media and broadcast use case, and many movement leaders have leveraged its scale to have huge groups. FWIW If you have ever seen a t.me link that is a link created via Telegram.

In the video below, Ben Thompson goes into great detail on why some chat apps are more secure than others and why Telegram’s USP of allowing groups to be huge (into the tens of thousands) impacts their ability to be more secure and encrypted.

On the whole, Telegram is a very strong product, has many better features than the likes of iMessage and WhatsApp and despite what you think happens on platforms like Telegram, for a lot of the bad, there is a lot of knowledge sharing and groups for good on platforms like Telegram.

Why Love Hate Anger LOL & Vanity Are The Key To Shareable Content

For years smart people have reverse-engineered how and why things are shared on the internet.

A handful of years ago people even got it to a point they could make something go viral…

In recent years with the shift away from a monoculture to many algorithmically driven subcultures, we have seen the way we share go from public by default to semi-private (in chat app groups) to one-to-one sharing.

From my background in crowdfunding and fundraising, there were always 4 main reasons why people share, it was simple,

• Love 💜 - for the love of something or someone

• Hate 🤛 - for the hate of something

• Anger 😡 - something that causes anger

• Vanity 💅 - something that made you look great aka vanity.
  

The one element we missed was LOL (😂), we have always shared laughable moments, whether that is by storytelling together, sharing a joke on email (yes this used to be a thing as did chain emails), share a clip of your favourite comedian before they were all close to being cancelled to someone banging their head or slipping over.

We have gone from sharing moments we saw → to moments others captured and then — sharing on group chats.

All of these parts of the formula are driven by you, your points of connection (nodes) and the connection and emotion it triggers. If it were a movie it would be inside out.

• Love - I love this, you will love this, I love you (made me think of you), ‘this is love’ always works as it drives a deep feeling and connection.

• Hate - I hate this, you will hate this, this will make you hate me, this is hatred always works as it drives a negative feeling and connects you both around something (for good and for bad)

• Anger - this makes me angry, this will make you angry, look at this angry mob etc picks on what we can be driven by or are looking for

• LOL - this is funny, this will make you laugh, this is funny do you remember this - all are centre points based on laughing together or sparking a memory

• Vanity - look at what I did, look at what this person said about me, look at your post doing well - all is about making you or your friend/colleague feel good.

If you are building a Product or looking to build out product features, definitely consider how you leverage these 5 emotions to help make your product sticky and truly build features that gain shares with these 5 emotions front of your mind and the users mind.

I’ll leave you with the Pixar storytelling video that will help you understand storytelling and how to apply these to your work.

The Business Of Duolingo

Duolingo is that app that is given as case studies, its seen as the leading light in Growth, app growth and AB testing.

Duolingo did incredibly well on TikTok and is often the go-to example of how to leverage brand in the Marketing landscape.

They were deliberately random and arguably smart, however, don’t expect it this to be your copy-paste winning formula for your brand.

Many do not realise the business model and the economics behind the language app, with over 80% of users not or never paying for any features of the app and an ad model that only contributes to -10% of its revenues.

Here is a quick video with the Duolingo team talking about their app, their smart approach to push notifications (think mum guilt), its economics and how AI is going to be powering many tests and many more to come.

Instagram Views Metrics

Social media metrics change, constantly, it can be the most hotly contested subject by creators, influencers and brands.

Instagram updated “creators” yesterday that they were shifting to views as their primary aka most important metric (the video below explains this).

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Adam Mosseri (@mosseri)

Adam Mossari the Head of Instagram shared - ““Views” the primary metric for Reels, Stories, photos and carousels.”

He also clearly references the top new important metrics

• Views (Adam Mossari rightly points out there can be multiple views per piece of content, so keep this top of mind)

• Sends per reach (how many people are sending your content via DM)

• Reach

Core Takeaways To Consider As A Creator, Influencer Or Brand:

• Views as standardised metrics are smart for Instagram but may be a little misleading for creators, it will be moving creators and brands to create more compelling (most likely video) content that is built less for public engagement but created for “sends”

• Views (count) are a critical metric on Threads too - highly engaged views will likely come next, and high-value views will also be considered by Instagram in the near future (who viewed, from where, how long or how many times)

• Engagement will always be important, however, engagement is lowering across the board, reactions have dropped because we live in a constant flow of content (which is too much for most of us) - engagement in public and private via sends will be critical in working out away from watch time what is

• Finsta’s (private friend accounts) and sinsta’s (meme-created accounts) have sent content via DM for a long time, this will likely see many more of these accounts created - a core internal Instagram metric

• Instagram have openly talked about its creation problem, but many aren’t creating (pareto law aka the 80/20 law is likely at play here - 80% viewers, 20% creators) this is a way to see curation and potentially create playlists

• Brands and creators - When creating content what you are creating, why you are creating this piece of content, who will be consuming and how it will prompt a share (in DM) - this will lead to smaller accounts with more influence and reach

• Follower counts will likely drop, many don’t need to follow creators and brands anymore and rely on other signals to power your FYP. Inbox shares and any comments connected to shares will enable Instagram to add more juice into certain videos, creators and the content they create

• Context of the share will be important, understanding why the content was shared, how it was viewed, the reaction and interaction around that content will be critical for Instagram to improve their product and beat out competitors like TikTok.

  • With an unique ability to improve Threads and potentially improve WhatsApp products from this learning.

My long-term view is Instagram is pushing users to create private groups (as this was naturally happening by users, even before the purchase of WhatsApp and Instagram - these are core reasons why Meta invested so heavily) and networks of sends.
Private becomes the default and the culture of these apps, an important however here is - Instagram can build their new private graph (working out who and how people are connected) to change content consumption habits away from one feed into an inbox of content curated by friends, family and creators (sorry brands it will be highly unlikely you are included in this).

Hype File, Swipe File, Hire File

You might have heard of different files, most commonly the swipe file, something you’re inspired by and will use as inspiration in work or play. Think of a private board for things to use in the future.

Something I recommend most is a hype file:

• Save screenshots where people have given you compliments

• Sent you nice feedback on work,
  or

• When friends have just said thanks, something nice or say you have gone over and above etc. 

My hype file is pinned in my Apple notes and is great when you’re having a crappy day or need a kickstart when having a low point. I split mine out into work hype, into home hype and friends hype.

A spin on the hype file is called a brag document when you have had great feedback, when they’ve got great coverage (for you, your work etc) about them or your product etc. 

Hire File

When I was in-house and developing my department (think of org design with connected profiles) I would create a Hire file.

It is a notes file of the areas we were not as strong in and is not just a list of roles but a file full of examples of very strong profiles from LinkedIn that would be great additions to my department. Hire files are more than just skills but are a well-rounded profile that would be a great hire for these roles or roles to craft in the near future. 

I would look at my hire file and see profiles of people on LinkedIn and craft job specs around their style of profile and on a couple of occasions they actually applied for the role and were standout candidates.

In your hire file don’t be afraid to save LinkedIn profiles or export to PDF and save in your hire file and reach out to these profiles, speak to them and say what you are looking to do and the timeline, often they will get back in touch closer to the time of hiring or you can keep them as warm leads.

These are all recommendations I make to my coaching clients, especially for CEOs, CPOs and CMOs.

If you enjoyed this article, enjoy the following ↓

• The exec hacks for Google Workspace

• What growth actually is

• WTF are High Value Employees

Looking for something specific? Search below

Ask Fatigue Impact On Your Business

Ask Fatigue is when companies constantly ask for more from their customers without any value exchange.

Here are just a few requests I have had in my email inbox & SMS over the last week:

• More orders

• Spend more

• Share more pics or videos with us (to include in our Marketing)

• More reviews (asking for TrustPilot, Feefo and Google reviews)

• More upgrades (upgrade to x package)

• More UGC requests (for the brand to use in their advertising)

• Spend more for free delivery (to increase their AOV)

• Costs more for returning orders (which used to be free)

• Costs for click and collect (the convenience of collecting isn’t genuinely a value exchange)

• Increase your subscriptions

I am a commercially minded executive, I know first-hand and have felt the pressures companies are under to improve financial performance, however, always asking for more and creating an associated ask fatigue, your business is skating on thin ice especially when the cost of living is higher and the unlimited amount of competitors in your space.

Something I push in my consultancy and advisory roles is to reduce the ask fatigue from your customers and if you ask what is the value exchange you are going to provide? If you cannot provide any value exchange

If you would like to hear me discuss ask fatigue more, here are two resources:

• Podcast Appearance: One more question 

• Conference Talk: Community as the next business moat

My Top 7 Google Workspace Hacks

Improve Your Productivity In Google Workspace

Many people especially leaders struggle when it comes to working more smartly with tools, they don’t learn the tools, they are never taught them and when it comes to time many just won’t invest a few minutes to save themselves hours.

So I wanted to share my favourite Google Suite/Workspace hacks to make your life easier and more effective in and around the suite.

Quick URL → Get Creating: Writing into the browser to create brand new docs straight away

1. slides.new - for Google Slides 

2. sheets.new - for Google Sheets 

3. docs.new - for Google Docs 

4. cal.new - for new calendar event 

Quicker Actions: Use the search feature in the left-right side to take the action / command you would like to from styling to adding a table in docs, a pivot table in sheets, to adding a diagram in slides 

Preview > Edit: Link into a Google Slides rather than send to edit interface -  With your Google Slides URL, look at the URL string and replace /edit with /preview and this link sends the viewer into that slideshow directly without the default edit view (shown below)

Mute: Use the Mute feature to slience noisy email chains or where you are CC-ed in for no real reason - tick email, go to the three dots and select mute

Hide Guestlists: Hide guest list (often this can be helpful with management meetings, big meetings and external meetings) - go into your calendar invite, edit event and untick "See guest list."

Better speaker than writer? In Google Docs - Go to ‘Tools’ and then select ‘Voice typing’. 

Get Ahead With Your Daily Agenda: Have your daily schedule emailed to you In Google Calendar settings > Other notifications > Daily agenda

One More Question Podcast

This is my One More Question Podcast appearance, Ross and I broke down the modern-day Marketing world, what the business impact of Marketing is really and how the creator space is leading the way for brands to improve their products and the connection with their customers.

So Why Listen?

• Why being a brand and standing out is an active business decision

• Why Performance Marketing vs Brand Marketing isn’t versus it is and always has to be and - if it’s not you are building a brand ready to disappear

• Grasp the importance of your utility level as a company and develop this out within your messaging and growth action plan

• Understand that the delivery company you choose to deliver your customer orders is a reflection on your company and your brand, your first experience will be your last if your delivery is impacted

• Why my coach+ product is popular and why coaching is critically important to Marketing and Growth team successes

• Nostalgia is always going to be essential in Marketing but many overlook it or don’t see the power of the archive

• Understand the power of generational brands

• Why being a brand not a bland is critical in winning your customers

• Learn why brands can go hyper-personalised to beat out competition (a handwritten thank you note will scale for you to win and stand out)

• “Brand” is a tribe and tribal - it is critical to understand when to build a tribe or ask customers to join your tribe

• Be bold to win - that has to be a business decision

• Why community brands could be the next big

Or listen on your podcast player of choice ↓

Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts ,

Growth Is: Always Be Auditing, Always Be Marketing

I have a motto, Its “always be auditing, always be Marketing”, it is simple, for me it is this what modern day growth is -

• Auditing what is working, what isn’t working and what can be optimised (aka keep, kill, cure)

• Marketing is an always-on strategic department, that needs to learn from its auditing and market accordingly.

These core components allow you to be smarter at Growth and roll out the best Growth work streams, in and outside of Product feature improvements, optimisations and tests.

It was my birthday recently and I received a great personalised card from my better half.

Moonpig has a smart way of using its packaging to market to the receiver to send a thank you card, you scan the QR code and it takes you to the thank you card section. Why is this smart Growth? It’s

• Quick

• Easy

• Low cost

• Trackable

• Scaleable

One tweak I would have made (if possible would be) would be to match it to the sender and provide a chance to say thanks in one or two clicks.

QR Code taking you to the Thank You cards on site

I implemented QR codes (here’s my QR code case study) to track the impact of offline to online - it was personal to every user, it enabled us to track the impact of offline promos and every user sharing the code and provided a scalable way to grow our brand foorprint by our users.

My Favourite Growth Video How To Start A Movement

I have a Google slides deck I share with all of my clients, it’s a long playlist of videos on Growth, not just business growth but includes categories that are:

• Life

• Product

• Marketing

• The Future

The deck is to how frame growth differently, it’s how to see growth and business as many different parts, many different biases and many different disciplines coming together. To understand behaviour, we must open up, see how movements are made, appreciate different perspectives, and evolve.

The (below) video is from a classic TED talk called “How To Start A Movement”, in 5 minutes this video demonstrates how human behaviour and human (cognitive) biases can be made or broken in a few moments, it shows you how to stand out, be different, embrace change and go with the energy.

Next time you worry about doing something different or wanting to stand out, remember it takes one small step/dance to be a leader!