Today in Digital Marketing - 97: 🎵 Renegade Renegade Renegade Renegade

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Friday, February 14th, 2020. Happy Valentine's Day. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital. Today, Facebook is apparently out of original ideas. Why are we all marketing more on Alexa? Getting the culture right on TikTok? And your biggest e-commerce competitor might spend less time in meetings and more time in Algebra 11. Here's what you missed today in Digital Marketing.

Starting point is 00:00:31 Yesterday, I reported on a huge bug with one of Facebook's APIs, a bug that prevented third-party tools from replying to Facebook comments. Well, that bug is still there. This is not news to you if you use one of these tools like Agora Pulse or Buffer Reply or Hootsuite or Sprout Social and the likes. It's been down since Wednesday afternoon. It might be getting better though. A community manager at Sprout Social, which we use, reported that he was able to reply to a Facebook comment test, but when we tested it right after, we got the Facebook had a problem posting your reply error. We are going into a long weekend, at least throughout most of Canada. Let's hope this doesn't last through the

Starting point is 00:01:11 next three days. Facebook's experimentation group has launched another mobile app. This one is called Hobby, H-O-B-B-I, which lets you organize images into boards to keep track of your hobbies, interests, ideas for home decor, starting to sound familiar? Yeah, it's basically Pinterest, although with a little bit more of an emphasis on DIY hobbies, for now at least. This is something Facebook does a lot of, sees a popular app and tries to copy it. They successfully did it to Snapchat after Mark Zuckerberg's acquisition offer was turned down. And now we have Instagram stories because of that.

Starting point is 00:01:52 Other app ideas that Facebook has tried. Whale lets you create simple meme images. Ox, which is essentially a group DJ and playlist app. Bump, a hyperlocal chat app for students. Slingshot was their first attempt to take on Snapchat, Riff, which was basically a Vine clone, and on and on. But they are not the only ones sniffing Pinterest's hindquarters. Google recently launched their own version called Tangie, all of which might be good news for Pinterest and digital marketers and brands who use Pinterest. After all, when the big players are getting interested,

Starting point is 00:02:30 that almost certainly means they think there's money on the table there. Smart speakers. Do you have one? Like an Amazon Alexa or Google Home? Sales reached 147 million units across the globe last year. That is 70% more sales than the previous years. And a great piece on Marketingland this morning asks, with such a large and still growing base, the mystery is, why are we not seeing smart speakers and displays develop as a marketing channel? Quoting the piece, Amazon introduced the Echo in 2014, almost six years ago. In early 2019, the company announced more than 100 million Alexa-powered devices had been sold. There are now more than 100,000 Alexa skills, with no breakout hits.

Starting point is 00:03:18 We've seen no usage data from the platforms, no third-party PR, no behavioral data from any of the brands like Walmart to give us much insight into actual usage. We have a ton of surveys that say smart speakers are being used for searching commerce, but we don't know how well the surveys actually correspond to behavior, unquote. And there are lots of ways we could monetize those speakers, audio advertising, reordering groceries, restaurant reservations, and so on. You know, I always think that sometimes we as digital marketers sometimes think a little bit past what people's comfort ranges actually are. The trash cans of the corporate world are filled with marketing plans whose mandate was essentially, let's do it because we can. Instead of what we all should be doing, which is let's do it because we can. Instead of what we all should be doing, which is, let's do it because there's a need.

Starting point is 00:04:12 I know my Amazon Echo can order me stuff. I just don't trust it to. I worry that it'll get things wrong or I'll accidentally buy the wrong brand. It's a good reminder that what we all need to sell first is trust and our products second. If you recognize that tune, you probably spend some time on TikTok. It's one of the many short song clips to which people dance and not just dance randomly. Like most of these musical bits on TikTok, there is basically one dance for this, one choreographed routine, which if you want to do it right, you need to practice and learn. And many, many people have. Kourtney Kardashian, the K-pop band Stray Kids, and hundreds of thousands of mostly teens around the world.

Starting point is 00:05:02 The renegade dance is even being taught in some dance classes now. 12, clap, figure eight, wave, wave, punch, snap, forward side, cross, kick. We know where a lot of these meme dances came from. The floss that Fortnite made famous and then in turn made the kid who started it famous. But what of renegade? Who choreographed that? The New York Times tracked the originator down and it turns out to have been a 14-year-old from Atlanta named Jalilah Harmon. She's a dance student and honestly a little bit pissed that she isn't reaping the rewards for it. After all that, Floss Kid's social media accounts exploded.

Starting point is 00:05:47 He was on Ellen, he was in a music video. But Jalilah has stayed in the shadows. It's not like she hasn't tried to get credit. She used to comment on people's videos when they did it. But unlike on Instagram, where crediting the originators of a dance is often the norm, that doesn't seem to be the case as much on TikTok. And you may be wondering, all right, Todd, interesting story, but how does this relate

Starting point is 00:06:11 to digital marketing? Here's how. When we marketers screw things up on new social channels, it usually boils down to one reason. We don't understand the culture. Each social channel has its own culture. This is especially true for TikTok. And when we brands jump onto them and basically do the same thing that we've always done, it's not just ineffective, it's embarrassing. And it's not like you have to be a cool brand to get it right. If you are on TikTok right now, go check out the Washington Post's channel. Yeah, the Washington Post, the 142 year old newspaper, they are killing it on TikTok. And if you are not yet on TikTok, well, it is the weekend coming up. So go read that New York Times piece. There's a link in the description and go download the app. I'm on there. My username is Todd Maffin. Rest assured, there are no videos of me dancing because nobody needs to see that.

Starting point is 00:07:13 Speaking of young influencers, if you are in retail e-commerce, you probably know your competitors, other retailers. Maybe you consider Amazon or eBay your competitor too. And if you're in the trendy downscale clothing category, you may be competing with Carly Shipman. She's a high school student from Chicago, and she is one of many teens who have turned their Instagram account into a private and lucrative e-commerce platform. What she does is goes to thrift stores, buys things she likes, and takes them home and posts photos of them along with a buy it now price and a starting bid amount. People then bid by adding their price in the comments. Final details are handled by DM. She gets Venmo'd or PayPal'd the money and after school she packs them up and mails them out. Carly has 24,000 followers. Yes, this is basically her own version of eBay

Starting point is 00:08:09 inside Instagram. So far, she's sold more than 400 items. She mails out dozens of packages a month, so much, in fact, that the workers at the local post office actually know her by name. So you may be keeping an eye on the official e-commerce stuff like Instagram's shopping functions. But don't forget about those competitors that are off the radar. InputMag has a great piece about Carly and this growing trend of private Instagram sellers. If you're in the e-commerce space and this is of interest to you, you will find a link in the description of this episode. By the way, thank you so much for all your feedback about the advertising options here. I did get quite a good, a lot of good feedback on the classified ads idea. So I may work on that

Starting point is 00:08:54 later in the month. It is a long weekend, at least here in most of Canada. And so no episode on Monday. So take that time you would have listened on Monday to rate and review this podcast. Here is the super quick way to do it. Just go to ratethispodcast.com slash today. It will take you right to the review site for your app. That's ratethispodcast.com slash today. That link is in the description, of course. I am off to put some time into my Fallout 76 character.

Starting point is 00:09:28 If things go as they usually do, I'll play for 10 minutes, rage quit it, and then go back to yelling at 12-year-olds on Overwatch. Good times. Follow me on social. Links to my channels and our agency are in this episode's description. I'm Todd Maffin. Have a restful weekend. I'll see you on Tuesday.

Today in Digital Marketing - 97: 🎵 Renegade Renegade Renegade Renegade

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