Today in Digital Marketing - 124: The Latest TikTok Clone? YouTube Shorts

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Thursday, April 2nd, 2020. I'm Todd Maffin. Happy Autism Awareness Day and National Burrito Day. Today, Microsoft plays nice with users who have multiple ad accounts. Sprout Social rolls out a few nice upgrades. Google now lets you customize your brand's COVID-19 announcement card on Google Maps. And yet another example of why those best time to post studies are complete nonsense. Here's what you missed today in digital marketing.

Starting point is 00:00:31 YouTube is said to be working quietly on a TikTok clone. But unlike a lot of the other clone attempts, like Google's Firework or Facebook's Lasso, this clone doesn't look like it'll be a separate app. Instead, people who claim to have inside information say the functionality will be built into the existing YouTube app and called Shorts. This does track with their past cloning. The Stories format was copied and rolled into the YouTube app as well. And YouTube would have a bit of a leg up here.

Starting point is 00:00:59 They've already got all the music licenses in place and a 2 billion user strong base. Compare that to TikTok, which is estimated to have about 300 million outside of China. They've already got all the music licenses in place and a 2 billion user strong base. Compare that to TikTok, which is estimated to have about 300 million outside of China. And there's more. Quoting social media today, that user base would also mean that popular YouTube influencers who might want to take advantage of a TikTok-like feed could do so without directing their users to another app and setting their masses of followers off to another platform. In addition to this, YouTube also has significantly more advanced monetization systems in place for those influencers, and as such, it would be likely to their benefit to further build their YouTube audience and presence rather than working on starting over in another tool, unquote. And that's a good point. Vine eventually got sold off, then shut

Starting point is 00:01:46 down, at least partly because they hadn't figured out how to monetize short videos. So their creators just jumped ship and went over to YouTube. For us digital marketers, this is also good news because it would essentially just mean another placement within the existing Google Ads interface that we already know, rather than dealing with another standalone platform. With so many people at home, a lot are turning to social media to, well, kill time, I guess, mostly. And so which of those social media platforms are winning as a result? TikTok, which to be fair, was already trending upwards before COVID-19, but interest in that app was up nearly 50% last month as measured by searches on Google. TikTok's main competitor, Snapchat, is in second place with an 18% uptick in March. All the rest are up too. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, each up by about 15%.

Starting point is 00:02:39 Pinterest up by about 5%, but there is one major platform that's down and significantly getting 23% less interest on Google than its usual traffic. Which one? I'll tell you at the end of this episode. Microsoft is rolling out some new features to their ads manager. For one, users of multiple accounts will get a new special view that will give you a high-level look across all your accounts. This will be your default page once you log in, if you're one of those people. You'll also be able to pick and choose which performance tiles you'd like in your default view, like performance accounts or devices. This new rollout is going slowly, so if you don't have it yet and you really, really, really want it now, reach out to your rep to get put into the Redesign Preview group,

Starting point is 00:03:26 or, you know, just wait until it gets around to you. Sprout Social has pushed out a few nice upgrades to its platform. You can now save your commonly used hashtags in the Asset Library to make it quicker to drop into your Instagram first comment. This is quite handy to have. Buffer Publish has had this for a while, although they implement it a little differently. Also, on Sprout Social, you can finally drop images and even PDFs into Facebook private message replies. Apparently, you can also reply with GIFs. GIFs?

Starting point is 00:03:57 GIFs? I don't care. I'm still calling them GIFs. Even though there's no button for the GIFs. So, I'm assuming they mean to go somewhere like jiffy.com and then copy the URL of one of them. It's weird to me that this hasn't been implemented. GIFs are part of the way that people communicate online, and I'm really surprised that a lot of the platforms, like Sprout Social, still don't natively support them. Also, you can publish either a What's New post

Starting point is 00:04:22 or an event post to your Google My Business profile. So this essentially just adds another channel that you can push your content out to, though you may want to consider a lighter frequency than what you may be doing on, say, Instagram. Also, heads up, there is an API limitation where if your brand has 10 or more locations, you may not be able to connect or post to your GMB profiles through Sprout. But all in all, some nice upgrades. Oh, and speaking of posts on Google My Business, they now have added a special type of post called a COVID-19 post. These update posts will appear at the top of your business profile in local search. So when people search for you in Google Maps, that shows up there.

Starting point is 00:05:05 If you do marketing for a brand that is an essential service, you may want to know that today LinkedIn made job listings free for you during this pandemic. They say they've seen healthcare job posts increase by 35% since the outbreak began. So they're letting you advertise for people without a charge. And this applies to a pretty wide range of organizations, even supermarkets, freight delivery services, warehouses. The free listings are available now. It will end on June 30th, unless, of course, they decide to extend it then. Also, LinkedIn will be giving these positions additional promotion with a new special category called Urgently Hiring.

Starting point is 00:05:45 There is yet another study out claiming to know the best time to post on Instagram. If you've been with me any length of time here at the podcast, you will know that I am terribly suspicious of these. They usually use very wide averages that are mostly meaningless and certainly not reflective of your own channel's performance and best time to post. For example, this study claims that the best time to post. For example, this study claims that the best time to get comments for a professional services brand is three in the morning, Eastern time. What the hell? Anyway, if you still like those studies, there's a link to

Starting point is 00:06:19 the latest in this episode's description. I'll say this about it. Very pretty charts. All right, a couple of random things that aren't directly digital marketing related, but I thought you should still know about. Zoom, the video conferencing app that is all the rage right now, of course. Zoom says it will freeze work on all new features for the next 90 days while it works on fixing some privacy and security holes

Starting point is 00:06:42 that people have been finding by poking around. LinkedIn has dropped the paywall for six more courses on LinkedIn Learning. You may previously have known this as lynda.com. The topics of those videos center around managing stress and building mindfulness. And also in the description, a link to an interesting case study of a brand and how they have adjusted their Facebook ad campaign as a result of the pandemic. It includes recommendations about adjusting your audience groups and has some sample creative. Oh, and the only large social network that is experiencing a significant downturn in search attention?

Starting point is 00:07:19 LinkedIn. 23% down. I guess posts boasting about how great a company you are just aren't really the right tone right now. I've been catching myself taking a lot of really big, deep sighs lately. I don't even mean to do them. I think it's just my body, like, releasing stress. And, you know, like in normal times, that seems to help. But the last week or so, I feel like I have sighed a thousand sighs and I still cannot clear the emotion in my body. So I'm still rationing my news about this whole COVID-19 thing. My wife and I get up to watch the prime minister's morning address to the nation, which some of us up here now call mornings with Justin. And then we permit ourselves one American Supper Hour newscast at night, and that, that is it. I hope you're doing well, you're healthy, you're mostly sane,

Starting point is 00:08:13 and that you are staying home. I'll talk to you tomorrow.

Today in Digital Marketing - 124: The Latest TikTok Clone? YouTube Shorts

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