Extension: Digital Marketing

“Content is king, but context is God.” - Gary Vaynerchuk

Why This Extension?

Whether you’re building a company, growing a product, or advancing your career, understanding digital marketing is essential. This module covers the psychology of why things spread, practical social media strategy, and how to create habit-forming products.

Prerequisites: Phase 5B (Entrepreneurship) or Phase 3C (Communication)

Week 1: Content Strategy Fundamentals

Core Concepts

Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: Give value, give value, give value, then ask. Most people do the opposite - they lead with the ask.

Native Content: Content designed specifically for each platform, not repurposed generically. What works on LinkedIn doesn’t work on TikTok.

The Attention Economy: Attention is the scarcest resource. You’re not competing with your competitors - you’re competing with everything else fighting for attention.

This Week’s Reading

📖 Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook by Gary Vaynerchuk (Full book)

• The importance of native content
• Platform-specific strategies
• What makes content great on each platform
• When and how to sell

The Jab/Right Hook Framework

The Right Ratio: 80% jabs, 20% right hooks (approximately)

Platform Native Content

Reflection Questions

1. What value can you uniquely provide to your audience?
2. Which platforms make sense for your goals?
3. What’s your jab-to-right-hook ratio currently?

Week 2: The Science of Virality

Core Concepts

STEPPS Framework: Six principles that make things go viral - Social Currency, Triggers, Emotion, Public, Practical Value, Stories.

Word of Mouth: The most powerful marketing force. People share what makes them look good, feel good, or helps others.

Contagious Ideas: Products and ideas spread because of specific, replicable psychological principles, not randomness.

This Week’s Reading

📖 Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger (Full book)

• The science behind virality
• Six STEPPS principles
• Practical application to any product or idea

The STEPPS Framework

Emotion and Sharing

Application Exercise

Analyze three pieces of viral content:

1. What STEPPS principles are at play?
2. What emotion does it trigger?
3. Why would someone share this?

Week 3: Habit-Forming Products

Core Concepts

The Hook Model: A four-phase process that creates habits: Trigger → Action → Variable Reward → Investment.

Variable Rewards: Unpredictable rewards are more engaging than predictable ones. It’s why slot machines and social media are so addictive.

The Ethics of Persuasion: Powerful tools require ethical consideration. Are you helping or manipulating?

This Week’s Reading

📖 Hooked by Nir Eyal (Full book)

• The Hook Model explained
• Creating internal triggers
• Designing for engagement
• The morality matrix

The Hook Model

Internal vs. External Triggers

Goal: Move users from external to internal triggers (habits form when product becomes associated with internal state)

Week 4: Putting It All Together

Core Concepts

Content Calendar: Systematic planning of content across platforms. Consistency beats sporadic brilliance.

Metrics That Matter: Vanity metrics (followers) vs. actionable metrics (engagement, conversion). Know what you’re optimizing for.

Personal Brand as Marketing: Everything you share builds (or damages) your personal brand.

This Week’s Reading

📖 Crushing It! by Gary Vaynerchuk (Selected chapters)

• Building a personal brand
• Platform deep-dives
• Success stories and lessons

Content Strategy Framework

Capstone: Marketing Strategy

Develop a digital marketing strategy for a product, service, or personal brand:

1. Target Audience: Who are they? What do they care about?
2. STEPPS Audit: How can you make your message spread?
3. Content Plan: What jabs will you throw? What right hooks?
4. Hook Analysis: What triggers, actions, rewards, and investments?

2026 Update: AI Is Reshaping Every Layer of Digital Marketing

The four weeks above cover the timeless psychology of what spreads and what hooks. This section adds the 2026 structural shifts that change where and how you reach people — not replacing the frameworks, but changing the distribution landscape they operate in.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO / AI Search)

Traditional SEO gets you on Google page 1. GEO gets you cited by AI surfaces — ChatGPT, AI Overviews, Perplexity, Claude, Copilot — which now answer research questions directly, often without the user ever clicking to your site. This is the zero-click model: AI does the research and returns a recommendation.

What drives AI visibility (Princeton GEO research, 2024–2026):

• Named statistics with linked sources → +30–40% AI citation rate vs. generic content
• Expert quotes with visible credentials
• Structured data / Schema / JSON-LD markup
• Entity consistency (same name across your site, social profiles, and directories)
• Visible publish + “last updated” dates (AI surfaces weight content freshness)

What does NOT work: llms.txt files and “chunking” content — Google officially states Search does not use them (Google AI Optimization Guide).

Key insight: GEO best practices are the same as good writing and genuine expertise — authoritative, citable, structured content. It is not a new round of keyword hacks.

Source: Google, AI Optimization Guide; Search Engine Land, GEO 2026 Full Guide.

Agentic Commerce: AI Agents Are Now Buyers

By 2026, AI agents don’t just help consumers research — they are completing purchases autonomously on the user’s behalf. AI platforms drove approximately $20.57B in US retail e-commerce in 2026 (~4× 2025, ~1.5% of total US e-commerce); Morgan Stanley projects roughly half of online shoppers using AI shopping agents by 2030 (~25% of spend). Source: eMarketer, July 2026.

Three competing protocols are live as of July 2026:

The durable playbook for merchants: Complete structured product data (JSON-LD) comes first — an agent that can’t parse your catalog can’t buy from you, regardless of which protocol wins. Protocol adapters come second, after your data layer is clean.

Anti-pattern: Blocking AI crawlers in robots.txt by default. Agents that can’t discover your catalog have no path to purchase from you.

Source: Orium protocol comparison; ACP spec on GitHub.

AI-Augmented Marketing Operations

The most practical 2026 shift for small teams: marketing operations no longer requires humans monitoring every metric manually. An agentic ops roster — a set of always-on AI agents each with a defined threshold — replaces passive dashboards:

• Paid-ads watch: Monitors spend across Meta/Google; flags/pauses underperformers before bleed
• Competitor watch: Tracks competitor pricing and ad creatives
• Morning digest: 9 AM summary with anomalies surfaced
• Review analyst: Flags negative reviews; drafts tailored responses instantly
• Inventory watch: Warns ~14 days before fast-moving SKUs stock out

Design principle: Agents read, interpret, and recommend. Humans approve irreversible actions (budget changes, campaign pauses, data deletions). “Read-only by default” is the operative rule.

The stat caveat: References to swell.is for DTC statistics (CAC $68–84, 84% AI adoption) may have moved or changed. Verify at time of use; the Klaviyo Email Benchmarks and Shopify Global Commerce Report 2026 are current alternatives for email and e-commerce statistics.

Updated Platform Table (2026)

Key Frameworks

Resources

Books

• ⭐⭐⭐ Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook (Essential - 6h)
• ⭐⭐⭐ Contagious (Essential - 7h)
• ⭐⭐ Hooked (Recommended - 5h)
• ⭐⭐ Crushing It! (Recommended - 8h)

Free Resources

• Gary Vaynerchuk’s YouTube content
• HubSpot Marketing Resources
• Neil Patel’s marketing blog

Podcasts

• Marketing School (daily, 10 min)
• The GaryVee Audio Experience
• Social Media Marketing Podcast

AI Learning Integration

Content Ideation Prompt

Help me create a content strategy using the STEPPS framework.

My product/service/brand: [describe it]
My target audience: [describe them]

For each STEPPS principle, help me brainstorm:
1. How can I create social currency?
2. What triggers can I associate with my brand?
3. What emotions should my content evoke?
4. How can I make my product/message public?
5. What practical value can I provide?
6. What stories can I tell?

Generate 5 specific content ideas for each platform I should be on.

Hook Model Analysis Prompt

Help me analyze a product through the Hook Model lens.

Product: [name the product - could be yours or one you use]

Walk me through:
1. What are the external triggers?
2. What internal triggers does it target?
3. What's the action and how simple is it?
4. What variable rewards does it offer?
5. What investments do users make?
6. How strong is the habit? What could make it stronger?

Phase Assessment

Complete the following to demonstrate digital marketing competency:

1. Quiz: Marketing Concepts (30%)
2. Case Study: Marketing Campaign Analysis (70%)
   • Analyze a successful campaign using STEPPS
   • Apply the Hook Model
   • Propose improvements using learned frameworks

I'm studying Digital Marketing (Phase EXT-MARKETING of my MBA program).

Act as a Socratic tutor - don't give me direct answers. Instead, ask me questions to help me discover insights about these concepts: Digital Marketing, Content Strategy.

Start by asking what I already know about one of these topics, then guide me deeper with follow-up questions. Challenge my assumptions when appropriate.

After each of my responses, either:
1. Ask a deeper follow-up question
2. Point out a gap in my reasoning
3. Connect my answer to another concept

Let's begin.

Quiz me on Digital Marketing. Ask 10 questions covering: Digital Marketing, Content Strategy.

Rules:
- Mix question types (multiple choice, short answer, scenario-based)
- Start easier, get progressively harder
- After each answer, tell me if I'm right or wrong and explain why
- Keep a running score
- At the end, summarize what I know well vs. need to review

Ask the first question now.

Help me apply the main frameworks from this phase to a real situation in my life or work.

First, ask me to describe a recent challenge or decision I faced.

Then guide me through analyzing it using these frameworks:
- Which framework applies best?
- What would each framework reveal about the situation?
- What would I do differently knowing this?

Don't lecture - ask questions that help me discover the insights myself.

I want to practice case analysis for Digital Marketing.

Give me a short business scenario (2-3 paragraphs) involving Digital Marketing, Content Strategy.

Then ask me:
1. What's the core problem?
2. Which frameworks from Digital Marketing apply?
3. What biases might cloud judgment here?
4. What would you recommend?

After each answer, push back on my reasoning before moving to the next question.

I'm studying Digital Marketing and need to understand these concepts deeply: Digital Marketing, Content Strategy.

For each concept, ask me to explain it in simple terms (as if to a child).

If my explanation is unclear or wrong, don't correct me directly. Instead:
1. Ask clarifying questions
2. Give me a scenario that tests my understanding
3. Help me refine my explanation

The Feynman technique says if you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.