Weekend Musings 33
Thoughts on why a therapist, Meta AI ads, and state of modern philanthropy
Anxiety is the theme of Mental Health Awareness Week 2023
“Do you think I am in depression? but I don’t understand the point why should I go and pay a therapist and discuss all my problems. You sent me once but it was just me talking. I didn’t find it useful and no results,” said my mother in a recent telephonic conversation.
There was a time when I had the same thoughts and I would make fun of people who would go or talk about therapy.
5 years ago I was searching desperately for a therapist. After some hard luck because you can’t Google or ask anyone as it invites the shame of judging. In fact, someone told me that these things are only for people who work in Bollywood.
After a few setbacks, I was lucky to find a therapist not like how it is shown in Bollywood or Netflix. In my first meeting I asked my therapist how long will it take me to get better and will he give me some medicine.
Anyways the process started and in my first year I would visit him every week, then after six months it became twice and by the end of the year, it was once. After two years one fine day, I told my therapist that I don’t have anything to talk about.
Post that it became only on a need basis. And whenever I have questions for which I need professional help I go to him.
So the question is why should you see a therapist?
We have parents and best friends to help us but they will have personal biases and however great might be the bond the answers will have filters of their experience.
When you go to a professional therapist you don’t have the personal bias. Also, the job of the therapist is to listen and not to advise you on what you should do. Not for once my therapist has advised me and all my answers came to me while talking to him.
A lot also depends on the therapist and how he/she makes you comfortable and opens up. I am lucky that I found a really good one who still remembers everything :)
One can say then journaling could be a great answer or even meditation. Both have helped me but what do you do when you want to get professional help on a childhood problem? For instance, I have traced back all my problems largely connected to my childhood.
I am still human so I am bound to make mistakes but therapy helped me to look at my problems, shortcomings and accept things. I should credit Vipasanna for giving me the strength to control my emotions have more awareness and find the self.
But one needs to be patient and persistent. Our problem is that we want a Dolo for everything.
Whether you see a therapist or not is a personal choice but there is no shame in going to one. Chuck the naysayers at least you taking one step in this direction is a step towards you wanting to become a better version.
For my mother, I know she might not go to therapy and I don’t force her. Everyone has their own way of processing grief and you can’t duck it. She travels, goes for a run, is always excited to go to a Vipassana camp, plays tombola with her gang, and cooks for my brother.
I just make an effort to listen to all her things almost every day.
Last night she notified me that she will send me a romantic Bollywood song and I will have to explain the meaning. She wants to check her understanding with mine. “I can’t ask anyone or else they will make fun.”
Talk about my new bond with her :)
How Meta is investing in AI to make ads perform better
The latest Facebook update by CEO Mark Zuckerberg shows that the company will be pumping money and resources into all things AI.
Out of the 4 announcements he made the one that caught my attention is the company designing a chip called MTIA to power AI recommendation systems to help figure out the best content to show users even faster.
Earlier this month the company announced that it is building AI Sandbox that’s testing generative AI capabilities for advertisers. These would be new features to add to the Meta Advantage suite of ad automation tools.
To begin with, Meta is building AI capabilities that will produce:
Text Variation: The tool will generate multiple variations for the ad copy that you will provide. Prior to this, there were options to have multiple ad copies to test. Now Meta is making the job easier.
Background generation: You provide the text and the AI will produce images for your ad, allowing advertisers to try out various backgrounds.
Image outcropping: Adjusting images to different aspect ratios for multiple ad placements. Until now Meta would provide capabilities to apply filters and make images better. Additionally, if you trusted the creative Advantage Suite it would show different images to different target audiences based on its knowledge.
These tools will be a game changers for small and medium businesses that wouldn’t have a massive budget for having a creative agency.
Out of all the tools - I am keen to test “Background Generation” just to see the variety of images the AI can generate. The only limitation as of now I can see is that it is images for now. And it won’t be long before Meta introduces videos. In fact, in its present form if you can provide 4-5 images it converts into a video.
Additionally, it is also working on another chip Meta Scalable Video Processor or MSVP - Meta’s first in-house-developed ASIC solution designed for the processing needs of video on demand and live streaming.
So why would you need a creative agency or experts in the field?
Well for storytelling. People click on an ad still because it is able to tell a story and it connected with them.
Meta is also increasing performance capabilities to Meta Advantage - a portfolio of automation products that use AI and machine learning to help optimize campaign results and personalize ads by matching them to the right people.
One of the updates states Meta is improving the performance of the audience. According to the company the new product product that will provide advertisers with an updated way to reach people and drive conversions. “Instead of using an advertiser’s audience targeting inputs as hard constraints, such as Men, 18-35 years, who like baseball, advertisers who use Advantage+ audience will add their audience inputs as suggestions to guide who sees an ad.”
In other words, the age-old way of defining targeting is changing. Now Meta wants you to be more flexible and let it decide what is right for you under the definition of showing the ad to a larger audience.
The targeting controls still remain but it will move to a new section called “Audience Controls” and they will basically act as a guide to your targeting and the algorithm will decide how it wants to expand the audience. This is not new it is already having features where your ad can be shown to a larger group of similar interests without increasing your costs.
This is how Meta ad targeting will work since the organisation wants to keep control of its targeting. Last year I shared why Meta is doing it and in a way building a walled garden approach.
Nonetheless, it helps and especially if you are not a Facebook ad marketing guru.
How did search intent change in 2022 vs 2021
According to Semrush Google has clearly changed the balance of the SERPs and started diverting the searcher’s attention away from purely informational results to transactional and commercial. Find more insights on the State of Search for 2023 based only on US traffic.
Modern State of Philanthropy 2023
According to Classy’s latest findings which are based on its platform and GoFundMe: “Facebook and Instagram are clearly top traffic drivers, but LinkedIn is an attractive place to target high-intent (and potentially high-net-worth) donors.” Organically LinkedIn is a great platform in comparison to Meta. However, the cost of acquiring a donor is very high on LinkedIn.
This week I also shared my thoughts on how to run a click-to-donate campaign on Meta and how NGOs can increase fundraising sources by integrating a marathon.
That’s all for now. Have a good weekend!
Love - PN.