Today in Digital Marketing - 182: How Will The Facebook Ad Boycott Affect Your Brand?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Facebook is scrambling to contain the damage being done by a planned July boycott of all Facebook and Instagram advertising. Now, one of the planet's biggest brands says they're in too, not just for July, for the rest of the year. It forced Zuckerberg out to make a sort of non-announcement this morning, but this whole boycott thing may have implications for your brand too. It's Friday, June 26th. Happy Flag Day, Romania. I'm Todd Maffin, and here's what you missed today in Digital Marketing, brought to you by Swanson Health. Well, you can't blame him if he looked a little tired today. I want to share some new policies that we're putting in place and adopting to connect people. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg did a live broadcast this morning to announce some changes to its policies around voting and politics. We'll get to those in a moment.

Starting point is 00:00:55 But all this comes as more brands are joining the growing boycott of Facebook. And today came word of a big one. Unilever, which controls big spending brands like Dove, Hellman's, Lipton, and Breyers Ice Cream, they say they are pulling all advertising on Facebook. And, this is new, not just for July, like most of the other boycotting brands, but for the rest of the calendar year. And not just Facebook, but hell, Twitter too. The boycott is meant to punish Facebook for not deleting hate speech and for leaving US President Donald Trump's more egregious posts up. Consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble said today they are reviewing where they spend ad dollars and will drop platforms where it finds hateful content. Apparently they have not yet reached a decision on the Facebook boycott. Facebook obviously now in some kind of controlled panic, reaching out to their biggest customers to tell them that they base policies on principles,

Starting point is 00:01:50 not business interests. And while that's nice messaging, I think we can all agree it's just not true. They're a public company. Their fiduciary duty is to their shareholders, not a set of ethical standards. As I was writing today's episode, Facebook rushed out a statement saying, quote, we've opened ourselves up to a civil rights audit. We've banned 250 white supremacist organizations from Facebook and Instagram. The investments we've made in AI mean that we find nearly 90% of hate speech before users report it to us, unquote. But this may have an impact on you. If this boycott continues to grow, your customers may soon be asking what your brand's position is on it. If you're advertising on Facebook in July,

Starting point is 00:02:34 do you plan to stop if you get called out on it? Do you have some messaging to reply with? Whatever you decide to do, it's worth making sure your whole team knows what the game plan is. Okay, back to Zuckerberg today. It's pretty clear this live stream came as a result of this growing boycott. Journalists got very little warning about it happening. We're talking minutes of notice. And the announcement was, well, underwhelming. For one, they're making a change to their ad policy so that they'll ban ads that claim people from a specific race or religion or sexual orientation or immigration status are a threat to the physical safety of anyone else.

Starting point is 00:03:26 Let's be clear here. This is a non-announcement. Facebook already has this in their community standards. But what I was really listening for was any action on what started this whole ad boycott to begin with. Facebook's reluctance to take down Donald Trump's posts when he promotes violence. Would Facebook start taking down those posts? Or at least hide them like Twitter seems to be doing now? Nope. Seeing speech from politicians is in the public interest. And in the same way that news outlets will often report what a politician says, we think it's important that people should generally be able to see it for themselves on our platforms too. So we will start soon labeling some of the content that we leave up

Starting point is 00:04:01 because it is deemed newsworthy. We're still going to allow people to share this content in order to condemn it. This live stream only just happened around 11 o'clock this morning Pacific time, so it might be too early to know if this will slow down or stop the ad boycott. But if I were a betting man, my money would be on no. Hackers have found a new way to access the credit card numbers of your customers through your Google Analytics setup. The respected Kaspersky Lab says the new technique can also collect everything from IP addresses to passwords. Quoting SecureList.com,

Starting point is 00:04:40 A site first has to be exploitable, which means that it operates with vulnerable software that allows an attacker to gain control. Once the site has been compromised, the attacker uploads code that siphons off information that users share on the site, like passwords and credit card numbers. The way attackers steal user information is by adding their own Google Analytics code into the website, exploiting Google Analytics to send the code to them. And one way to know if your site is affected by this hack is to check if more than one Google Analytics code is on your site. But a quirky thing the hackers are doing is hiding the code when a browser is in developer mode. Presumably, the hackers are assuming that a site publisher

Starting point is 00:05:21 will be inspecting their site for rogue code while the publisher's browser is in developer mode. If you're checking your site to see if there's an issue, be sure your browser is not in developer mode. If you're worried about this or you have an IT team that should know about it, there's a link to the study in the show notes. And remember, if that rogue analytics code is there, that means you have two problems, that hack and the underlying vulnerability that allowed the hacker to place that code in the first place. Podcast consumption appears to be picking back up after the first wave of the pandemic lockdowns. E-Marketer says, quote, despite the dip this year, time spent will return to steady growth in the coming years, verging on one fifth of the total time spent with digital audio, unquote. But why did podcast listenership slip during the pandemic? It would seem people had nothing but time on their hands.

Starting point is 00:06:15 Quoting Media Post, Staying indoors and away from their offices has likely altered that rhythm. Podcasts in small chunks of time, like work commutes or walking down the street to lunch, staying indoors and away from their offices has likely altered that rhythm. There was very little to or fro happening. It seems most of the decline happened in April. PodTrack, which measures podcast audiences, reported that in April, all of the top 20 podcast publishers saw audience declines and the average unique monthly audience for the top 10 decreased by 15%. And what a difference a month has made.

Starting point is 00:06:51 PodTrack says in May, all but one of the top 20 publishers saw an increase in their audience over the month before. Still ahead, Microsoft's big changes to Bing could bring more views of your products. I completely missed the boat on YouTube's announcement yesterday, and a new player has entered the streaming game, and this player has got a lot of money to spend. That's in a minute when Today in Digital Marketing continues. This episode is sponsored by Swanson Health. They've been in business for more than 50 years now.

Starting point is 00:07:30 From quality vitamins to cruelty-free beauty items to eco-friendly home products, Swanson Health can help you keep healthy, all backed by strict quality standards that provide purity and potency. In fact, they carry more than 20,000 wellness products, all at a great value. Thank you. Swanson.com noted, on the flip side, it may also facilitate comparison shopping, creating a more competitive environment for similar products. Also on some pages, Bing will add a goes well with section that recommends complimentary apparel items. One leaves the ring, one enters the ring. Just days after Microsoft announces it will shut down its video game streaming site Mixer,

Starting point is 00:08:54 comes word that a new player has entered the game. It's called Trovo Live. It looks pretty much like Twitch, the dominant leader in the space. But what makes Trovo worth talking about? It is owned by Tencent, the Chinese conglomerate that also owns WeChat. Game streaming is a hot space for ad dollars right now. YouTube is in heavy.

Starting point is 00:09:16 Amazon straight up bought Twitch just to get in. Facebook has been working on its Facebook gaming platform for a couple of years now. This isn't the first time Tencent has put bets on video games. Far from it. It owns 40% of the company that makes Fortnite, and it wholly owns the company that makes the incredibly popular League of Legends. When I reported yesterday on YouTube's change to how people can make videos, the significance of that small change apparently went completely over my head.

Starting point is 00:09:56 Wednesday, YouTube said it is testing a new feature on mobile that lets users record 15 second long multi-segment videos. Here's what I missed. This, of course, is the same as the default length on TikTok. And not just TikTok, Instagram's new TikTok clone that they call Reels. So it turns out that story was less about a user interface change and more about competing with TikTok. And finally, Agora Pulse has upgraded its mobile apps to include a new reporting section. You'll be able to access content and community management reports for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, with all the metrics you'd expect to see there. They say this is one of many upgrades to their reporting that they're planning for this year.

Starting point is 00:10:33 And Sprout Social also added some competitor search functions to its listening product. The listening side is built into their main app, but does require a somewhat pricey add-on to enable it. Special thanks to Swanson Health. Try them today with 20% off by using the code TODAY20 at swanson.com. The ad that follows, even though it's written in the first person, is not about me, but from another individual, just so that's clear. And the closing music today is Beach by the band Pacific Colors from my hometown of Nanaimo, Canada. I thank them for permission to use their work.

Starting point is 00:11:09 Find them on Spotify, Pacific Colors. Our regular theme music is by Mark Glevis. Ad sales by Podcorn. I'm Todd Maffin. Have a restful weekend, friends. I'll talk to you on Monday. Let's get out of show. Let's go to the beach. I'll talk to you on Monday. What goes perfectly with incredible digital marketing? Let's go to the piece. Thank you. and send a message. It's the season for new styles and you love to shop for jackets and boots.

Starting point is 00:12:32 So when you do, always make sure you get cash back from Rakuten. And it's not just clothing and shoes. You can get cash back from over 750 stores on electronics, holiday travel, home decor, and more. It's super easy. And before you buy anything, always go to Rakuten first. Join free at rakuten.ca. Start shopping and get your cash back sent to you by check or PayPal. Get the Rakuten app or join at rakuten.ca. R-A-K-U-T-E-N.ca.

Today in Digital Marketing - 182: How Will The Facebook Ad Boycott Affect Your Brand?

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