Top 10 Emojis

Why The Face Emoji's Are Most Used

👋 Hey, Must Readers! I trust you had a good week. It’s starting to feel a lot like Christmas…queue Mariah, Justin Bieber & the worst Christmas song The Pogues.

This week’s newsletter includes 11 must-read stories for you to enjoy and share.

Thank You! 🙏  A big thanks to Jamie, LesleyAnn, Keith, Beth, Marco, Adam, Carl, Mark, Peter, Ian and Leanne who have all brought me a thank you coffee for Must Reads, I appreciate your continued support.

You can support me and the creation of Must Reads by buying me a coffee, it’s like a small tip to say thanks.

My New Project Launch 📖  

I’m delighted to bring you something I launched this week, it’s The Marketing Leaders Guide to 2022, 8 Marketing Leads (CMO’s VP, MD’s) answered 10 of my questions to help you and your business shape 2022. Download for free here.

Must Read Articles Of The Week 👇

  1. Life Hack - Calendar Auditing 🗓 Yes! It’s more than life hacks, it’s the thing we all need more of and hate people stealing = is time. It will improve your mood and performance - Read the calendar audit post

  2. Mindset, Meditation & Breathwork 🧘‍♂️ Why mindset, meditation and breathwork are essential areas to personal development and professional development. Be inspired by Briony’s journey and how you have to dig deep to improve - Go deeper

  3. Why The Rush To The Metaverse? 🧐 Meta (Facebook) Microsoft, Apple and many others have rushed towards the metaverse and what their opinions are, here is why Microsoft are talking about it a lot (and don’t worry it’s likely based on teams 😝) - Read why Microsoft want the metaverse

  4. AI Therapy 🤔 Will big data, AI (artificial intelligence) and ML (machine learning) make therapy better? Many believe so but few are getting there quick enough, would you trust ML to learn from your session notes to help you and others, or are we all too individual to gain help this way? - Read how AI is being used 

  5. Chess Teaching? ♟ Did the queens gambit help or hinder chess? There’s been a load of breakthroughs in the game since, now a 26-year-old chess teacher hit 1m subscribers, their journey is pretty impressive, but the secret…is streaming - Read the breakdown 

  6. The Worlds Biggest Unicorns 🦄 Fascinating seeing so many brands you may or may not have heard of being valued so highly (for instance ByteDance owns TikTok, Stripe powers many of the world payment sites)

  7. How The FT Re-engineered & Redesigned Its Homepage 📰 The FT is known for it’s quality reporting and evolving business. Something many do not see is how difficult “simple” tasks seem and updating homepages can be a nightmare and a political battle. Here is how the FT changed their homepage for their subscribers three use cases - Read their smart approach

  8. Sir David Attenborough Mission To Save Us 🌍 I read this article in the physical magazine (yes I am still a magazine reader) and found this article empowering and scary at the same time. Whatever your stance this long-read this an important read - Read the longread interview

  9. Networks & Communities Key For Journalism’s Survival 📰 The news often isn’t news anymore, it’s entertainment, reality tv and headlines to drive clicks and views but rarely offers insights that we expect. It has been predicted that communities will be a saviour to journalism in 2022, i’m sure it will help slightly but as local news is controlled or vanishing how will communities form around news…social networks - Read the full prediction

  10. The Story Behind The Instagram Sale 💵 I highly recommend Sarah Frier’s book, No Filter but if you don’t have the time to read it, this video interview is a must listen, how Instagram was built, engineered and how it has changed.

  11. The Secret To Greatness, Consistency 💯 I read this a couple of years ago and was reminded of it twice in the last week and often consistency is the most overlooked trait - Read the greatness article

EMOJI MADNESS

Did you know the 😂 is the most used emoji for the 5th year in a row?

The top ten in order: 😂 ❤️ 🤣 👍 😭 🙏 😘 🥰 😍 😊

Hint: As you can see the majority are based on emotion, face related & then emotion based, if you’re in Marketing or Growth, worth considering.

Book Release: 

Friend of Must Reads Harry Lang released his highly anticipated Marketing guide this week, here’s my blurb for his book

BB&B is available on Amazon now - order your copy for Christmas reading.

You Need Help!

  • ✅ Make Marketing Work: I help businesses grow, I help Marketing Teams to build out the right Department set up, build the right goals and actually deliver.

  • 👩‍💼 Coach & Mentor: I coach Marketing and Growth leaders.

  • 🚀 Grow Your Effectiveness: I help to drive your companies focus and develop Growth teams’ on the most important high impact work, so you can exceed aggressive business goals.

😉 Hint: The end of 2021 is the perfect time to audit your Marketing plans (aka Marketing Strategy) or Growth plans for 2022. Get in touch to shape your Departments successes for 2022 and beyond.

Thanks for reading again today 🙏

A big thank you for reading must reads again this week.

Please remember: If you would like to discuss any articles, have questions or an article recommendation, I’m always free for Must Readers - just hit reply

Until next week’s Must Reads, go well, friends.