2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ October
Instagram Cracked the Spam Problem. Here's What It Means for AI Search
Last April, Mark Zuckerberg testified under oath during the FTC's antitrust trial against Meta. Kyle Chayka, writing in
NOTES / DISPATCHES
Real-world strategy. Sharp observations. Practical notes from the frontlines of consumer behavior, culture, and communication. This is not a funnel. It is a record of how things actually move.
2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ October
SEO: No Digital Divide When AI Mediates Search
If you reached this post outside of a social share, you probably typed four keywords or less into a search
2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ October
Social Proof in 2025: What Actually Works
Trust became a metric somewhere along the way. Engagement rates. Conversion velocity. Funnel optimization. As if people are water.
42%
2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ October
Why 98% of Your Interested Customers Never Buy: Fixing Creator Conversion Funnels
You see a post from a creator you follow, someone whose judgment you trust about coffee makers or running shoes
2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ October
The Impossible Math of Authentic Trust: A Business Owner's Guide to the Creator Economy
You open Instagram and there's someone, maybe 47,000 followers, maybe 180,000, holding a water bottle with
2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ October
The Intimacy of Intent: What Voice Search Reveals About Who We Really Are
There's a moment, usually late at night, when you're alone with your phone or standing in
2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ September
Marketing Your Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) Clinic in a Boom Market
Signs in the Strip Mall
There are new signs everywhere. In strip malls. In office parks that used to house
2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ September
Clicks, Carts, and Bookings: Where Travel Marketing ROI Falls Apart
A data-first walkthrough of where travel brands actually make money online, and where the spend slips out to sea.
Morning
2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ September
Social Media Forecast: Fall 2025
This summer a lot of people were trying to predict things. More important things. Things that make summers everywhere special.
2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ September
How to Make Your Business Internet Famous in Hawaiʻi
Not a viral dance video your employees did. Internet Famous now means every AI mentions your business when people ask
2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ September
Is Your Hawaii Business Ignoring the Most Important Search Update in 20 Years?
Search engines have never been “must-have” gadgets. Nobody lines up for the new Google update the way they do for
2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ September
Speaking AI’s Language: Why Hawaii Businesses Need to Understand Semantic Triples
When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents in a rural farming town. People
2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ September
Hawai‘i Franchise Marketing Strategy: Why Corporate Templates Miss the Mark
Franchise Marketing in Hawaii: What It Looks Like on the Ground
Remember when every real estate listing bragged about its
2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ September
Hawai'i Business Guide to AI-Powered Customer Personalization
Introduction
When the trade winds stop, the jalousie windows turn useless. They remind me of the heaters my grandmother kept
2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ August
The Hawaii Business Owner's Guide to AI Marketing: A Practical Implementation Guide
Introduction
I was listening to a dharma talk podcast this week. The monk speaking was covering ownership and his perspective
2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ August
Are You Just Another Hawaii Business? How AI Search Rewards the Truly Different
Why Your Current Marketing Strategy Might Be Making Your Hawaii Business Invisible to AI Mediated Search Interfaces
🤙Before We Begin:
2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ August
Hawaii Marketing Agency Rates vs Fractional Marketing Costs: A Complete Guide
I have been watching the job boards. This is what you do when you work in marketing in Hawaii. You
2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ July
Why Are People Searching, "SEO Not Working?"
It's peak mango season on O'ahu. If you walk around, you can smell it, not the
2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ July
The $115.6 Billion Conversation: Why Hawaii Businesses Can't Ignore These Channels
There's a comedian from Waimanalo, Oahu. Nalo, and part of his tagline is "Howz it everybody it&
2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ July
The AI Browser Shift is Here: Why Hawaii Businesses Have a Unique Advantage
I'm sitting in my home office, staring out the window, watching the clouds bring the rain over from
2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ July
The Retrieval Layer Strategy: One Optimization Approach for All AI Interfaces
Why Smart Organizations Are Shifting from SEO to Retrieval Layer Optimization
How AI Changed Search Forever
It has been a
2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ July
🇨🇦 Happy Canada Day from the middle of the Pacific.
From 2008 to 2014, I spent a lot of time in Canada. I even lived in Toronto on a work
2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ June
The Summer of Fewer Mustangs: What's Really Happening to Hawai'i Tourism (Mid-2025)
I was driving to town the other day and noticed something. It wasn't the bright yellow blossoms of
2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ June
What Is Answer Engine Optimization? No One Really Knows.
Preface
In 1990 we used to skateboard behind an AM/PM on the corner of Goldenwest and Heil in Huntington
2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ June
The Trust Factory: How a Snowboarder's Frustration Sparked the World's Largest Psychological Commerce Experiment
And what brands can learn from Shopify's approach to manufacturing digital intimacy
In 2004, I spent my days
2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ June
The Summer When AI Learned to Feel: What's Really Driving Social Media in 2025
Fair warning: this is a long read. But some patterns are worth examining slowly, the way they actually develop in
2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ June
The Authenticity Advantage: What Social Media's New Favorite Word Really Reveals
Fair warning: this is a long read. But some patterns are worth examining slowly, the way they actually develop in
2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ June
There's a Difference Between Agencies That Talk About Hawaii Markets and Agencies That Understand There Are 8 Main Hawaiian Islands
How to Choose a Digital Marketing Agency in Hawaii
If you've ever lived in Hawaii, you've
2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ June
Mango Sticky Rice Smoothie Slay Era Strikes… Come on, who are we kidding? This was some damn good marketing.
This is a Note — quick field observations, no fluff
2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ June
The Mainland Mirage: Why Most Hawaii Brands Kill Their Own Authenticity
Most Hawaii businesses think they need to become someone else to succeed on the mainland. They're wrong.
We
2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ May
When Your Customers Have Money But Your Competitors Don’t: The Anti-Payday Strategy
A kitschy leisure apparel company once had it made. Their core audience? Seniors with steady income from Social Security and
2025 NOTES / DISPATCHES
✦ May
Your Marketing Still Talks to Appetites That Don't Exist
Most brands are still shouting at appetites that aren't there. Selling indulgence to a generation that's