Hello!

Part of being a founder, business owner, or marketer in this digital age is understanding trends and how they might be applied to your business.

As AI evolves, companies have an opportunity to scale bigger and faster than they ever have before – without the cost of increasing their headcount.

Let me put it in perspective. Currently, a small service business with a team of 10–14 people could plausibly achieve an annual revenue of $3M. Thanks to new technological advancements, I’d wager that within a year or so, we’ll start to see 1-person businesses earning $5-10M+.

These tools and strategies can be applied to any organisation of any size to become significantly more profitable.

I’d quite like my own business to be in this camp, and I’d like that for you too. Sharing is caring.

Two huge trends I’m seeing right now are faceless video content and social commerce – that’s what I’m going to dig into today.

Here’s what’s on the agenda:

Insights
🛍️ A new opportunity in social commerce
📹 What is faceless content and how does it work?
📱 Utilising faceless video for your business

🛍️ INSIGHTS

A new opportunity in social commerce

Social commerce is growing and those who are capitalising on it are doing very, very well.

One of the biggest opportunities emerging is TikTok Shop. While our North American friends will be familiar with this, it hasn’t yet hit the shores of Australia or New Zealand. But rumour has it, it’s coming soon.

Where TikTok Shop differs from the current Shopify integrations and advertising opportunities is that customers will be able to shop on the TikTok platform.

Brands will be able to offer affiliates for their products. Content creators can then promote these products, adding a product tag to their content to earn a commission for any converted sales.

It’s essentially a new form of influencer marketing – but they only get paid when they make a sale.

📹 INSIGHTS

What is faceless content and how does it work?

Think about the last time you sat in bed binging your Instagram, YouTube or TikTok feed. How much of that content featured the creator’s face in it? I'll bet a significant portion didn’t.

Faceless content focuses on the main subject – like a product, titles or an infographic rather than the creator. It may be animated, use stock footage or (quite likely) be AI-generated.

Faceless videos are perfect for camera-shy creators, or brands who can’t pay for talent every time they need to create some social content. The format isn’t new, but the tools you can use to create it – and more importantly scale it – are getting better and better.

There is now an entire movement on social media of faceless channels – some making 8-figures a year.

📱 INSIGHTS

Utilising faceless video for your business

I know what you’re thinking – is faceless content a good idea when you’re trying to build brand consistency and authenticity?

It’s important to create content that fits your brand and your audience.

While I wouldn’t recommend opting for a solely faceless content strategy, for some brands, it can be a great option to supplement your content and grow your online presence.

There is a world of time-saving, profit-maximising opportunities out there if you’re willing to experiment with the available technology. Here are some tools to get started:

My recommendation is to use it for things like title animations, infographics and backgrounds – things that can make otherwise static content more engaging.

You can also go all in on AI creation and have some fun with it if you’re transparent. Last year, Coca-Cola ran a campaign in partnership with OpenAI, giving users access to historical brand assets to “create real magic” using AI image generation technology. The best pieces were used for digital billboards in Times Square. Pretty epic.

💬 WORKSHOP

Faceless video for ecom brands

If you’re not exploring this technology, or looking to put a strategy in place to leverage it, then it’s time to start planning.

We’re running a free workshop for ecommerce brands through our community platform, Almond Labs. If you’d like to join, register your interest below.

Thanks for reading!

Until next time.

Alex Murton
Managing Director & Co-Founder
Studio Almond