Today in Digital Marketing - 178: Facebook Buys a Big Part of Microsoft

Starting point is 00:00:00 A new way to target people likely to buy things from you on Facebook. Spotify's clever new ad format might help you drive more sales. How to get all the features of Canva for free. And Microsoft's huge news, the sell-off of their video game streaming platform Mixer to Facebook. It is a stunning move that does have implications for digital marketers and thousands of streamers who are just learning about it today, Monday, June 22nd. Happy Day of the Farmer, Columbia. I'm Todd Maffin, and here is what you missed today in digital marketing.

Starting point is 00:00:36 So you sell things online. You've done the obvious, installed the Facebook pixel, built out some custom audiences. Custom audiences that infer buyer intent by using indicators like how long people stay on your site or how much they've engaged with your posts. Or maybe you've got all your products on your website under the URL slash store, so you can target people who visited URLs with slash store in them. But there's never really been a way to directly target based on interaction, specifically with your catalog basedbased products in Facebook ads.

Starting point is 00:01:12 Until now. Facebook is rolling out a new custom audience source called Shopping. You'll be able to build audiences based on people who viewed products within any recent date range and similar options. Not much to say here other than that because, as usual, Facebook has not been forthcoming with these changes, but definitely something to test in your next campaigns to see how it performs. Some huge news in the video game world today may mean more opportunities for you to reach audiences. Mixer.com, that's Microsoft's video game streaming site, is shutting down. This is a huge deal, maybe the biggest story this year in gaming. Mixer, like Facebook Gaming, like Twitch.com, like YouTube Gaming, is a site where people watch other people play video games live. Hey, laugh if you want, I have a third monitor on

Starting point is 00:01:57 my desk that has Twitch on all day long. Live gaming streams capture a lot of eyeballs, and those are attentive eyeballs at that. Which is why it's even more incredible that Microsoft just basically gave up. They'd launched Mixer a few years back, even spent tens of millions of dollars to lure gaming stars like Ninja and Shroud over from Twitch. Those gamers have been released from their contracts, and they can go back to Twitch if they want. Or go to Facebook Gaming, because that's where the Mixer site is going. I can't imagine how much money Facebook paid to buy out Microsoft's entire game streaming platform, but it probably wasn't a small amount. And when big deals like this happen, there's usually a well-thought-out checklist of things to get ready for when you roll out the announcement, right? Get messaging ready for Twitter inquiries, have the blog post

Starting point is 00:02:48 proofread. But it seems Microsoft forgot one critical part of this today, and that was to disable the featured streamer box on the Mixer homepage. This is a section where they highlight the live stream of a partnered gamer. And after the announcement, Mixer was featuring at the top of their homepage, a stream titled Mixer sold out. And the discussion happening there? Well, let's just say something that Microsoft's PR people should have seen coming. Inconsiderate. Yeah. Thank you. That's a great word that's the word thank you i'm retiring i'm done yeah i don't blame you i really don't know about this callan i'm done do not spend another fucking dime on mixer do not don't do it oof anyway how that affects us more consolidation of targetable

Starting point is 00:03:41 people on the facebook platform is always good of of course. But as a gamer and someone who watches streams daily, I will tell you my eyeballs will not follow to Facebook. I find their gaming site to be really messy. And frankly, my favorite streamers are on Twitch anyway. Still, though, a huge deal. A collection of civil rights groups in the U.S., including the Anti-Defamation League and the NAACP, are asking big brands to stop running Facebook ads in July. They say Facebook is not doing enough when it comes to the spread of hate on its platforms, such as its refusal to take down inaccurate posts from U.S. President Donald Trump. So far, some brands are participating in this blockade. Brands like the North Face and digital ad agency 360i, which counts among its clients, Discover Financial and Unilever. Quoting social media today, that won't be enough to cause a serious dent in Facebook's finances, but simply by taking part and promoting the campaign, it hurts Facebook's

Starting point is 00:04:43 reputation. More brands sharing the message means more awareness of the concerns around Facebook's For its part, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says they leave posts like that up there because they are in the public interest. You've heard it on podcasts before, and before that on decades worth of radio and TV ads, the promo code. You know the one. Go to ourstore.com and use the code HAPPY at checkout. That promo code, of course, is a way for us digital marketers to track where that site traffic came from. Well, Spotify is testing an interesting new setup for advertisers who want to keep that code front of mind. They call it an in-app offer. It'll be a link on podcast episode pages that leads to your website and will load with the promo code in the URL,

Starting point is 00:05:43 meaning listeners won't necessarily need to remember the code. They're testing it with one US podcast and one German podcast right now. This quick code only shows up on the page as long as the campaign is running. Because Spotify streams podcasts rather than the traditional method of downloading the MP3 files from an RSS feed, Spotify is able to insert different ads for different listeners. Until now, they've only used that technology on their own exclusive shows, but say today, they'll be expanding it to some brands in the US and Germany. I've always been impressed with a small social analytics tool up there called Minter. It's at Minter.io.

Starting point is 00:06:19 They are an Instagram analytics tool, and if you're using professional-level social tools, like, say, Spout Social or Agorapulse, you probably wouldn't need it since they have those analytics already. But if you don't use those, Minter's Instagram analytics have been really excellent. They're priced by the profile, so no bundling to figure out. And now they are adding Twitter analytics to their platform. With Twitter, though, getting historical data is sometimes tricky.

Starting point is 00:06:42 Well, not tricky, just expensive. And in Minter's case, they've got some historical data is sometimes tricky. Well, not tricky, just expensive. And in Minter's case, they've got some historical data available. They'll give you historics for the last 3,200 tweets and 800 mentions. Historical follower growth, they say, is available for most accounts, although there is no historical data for demographics. You can learn more about them at Minter.io. While we are on the topic of web apps for digital marketers, I am giving away a free lifetime subscription to Crello. Crello is basically like Canva. It comes with a half million stock images, 32,000 videos and animations that you can drop into your project,

Starting point is 00:07:20 like an Instagram story for your brand or a short video for your client or a new cover image for your Facebook page. The plan that I am giving away is the pro plan. It is lifetime access for you and to team members to enter. Click the link in this episode's description. It'll take you to a pre-filled tweet that, of course, promotes this podcast. Edit it if you like. Just make sure that I'm still mentioned in it because otherwise I won't be able to track it. Tweet it and then you are entered. I will announce the winner on Thursday. All right, two smaller items this Sunday money Sunday, sunny, this sunny. Why did I write it

Starting point is 00:07:56 like that? Two smaller items this sunny Monday. Never doing that again. First, LinkedIn stories are rolling out a little bit more widely, this time to Australia. They've already launched in Brazil and the Netherlands. And Hootsuite has added the ability to export a PDF of your team performance dashboard and you can upload SRT files to your Facebook and Twitter videos now

Starting point is 00:08:17 so that captions show up. My thanks to listener Cbrock84 who reviewed the show saying, this podcast is an excellent source for daily digital marketing news and happenings. I'm not directly involved with digital marketing, but as a CIO, there is substantial overlap with my marketing counterpart. So Todd's daily recap provides a wonderfully interesting and quick to digest overview of the news that indirectly affects my world. Thank you. And as long as you're recording, I am listening. Unquote.

Starting point is 00:08:46 Thank you very much for that. Which actually makes it even harder to announce that today is the last ever episode of the... No, I'm just kidding. If you would like a shout-out too, just click the link in this episode's notes. It'll take you right to your podcast's app review section. Don't forget about the giveaway. Free lifetime access to Crello, a Canva clone. It's got slots for team members,

Starting point is 00:09:08 thousands of templates and stock video and images. You'll find a link to enter in the show notes. It'll pop up a tweet that you can review. And if you're good with it, just tweet it out and you are entered. All right, that's it for today. Talk to you tomorrow.

Today in Digital Marketing - 178: Facebook Buys a Big Part of Microsoft

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