Today in Digital Marketing - A Surprising Drop for Instagram

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Tuesday, October 1st. Today, a surprising drop for Instagram. Less posting, fewer ad dollars. Why Meta's loss turns out to be Meta's gain. TikTok wants its users to flip out as it launches a new post format. The surprising underdog now winning the influencer marketing race. And we now know why a big chunk of YouTube's music went offline over the weekend. I'm Todd Maffin. That's ahead today in digital marketing. Instagram appears to be losing its luster among news and entertainment websites, with about 85% posting content on the platform in Q3 of 2024.

Starting point is 00:00:41 That's down from 90% last year. This according to new research from Digiday. These publishers are often used by our industry as a kind of bellwether, as their business depends on using social media to drive clicks to their websites. Where they go is usually an indication of where active users are. And worse for Instagram, ad spend is down too, with 55% of publishing brands purchasing Instagram ads in the past month, a drop from 60% in the same period last year. Instagram's branding value has also dropped. 70% of publishers now find it valuable for branding, down from 85% last year. And publishers are posting less frequently on Instagram. More than half still say they post content daily, but this period last year, that number was at two-thirds.

Starting point is 00:01:29 There is a few silver linings. Weekly posts have increased, with about 45% of publishers sharing content weekly. That's up from about 33% in previous years. And 45% are still investing in original content from Instagram. That is up a little bit from 40% last year. Despite that, the perceived value of Instagram for revenue generation has fallen. Only two out of five publishers now find it valuable, down from almost half last year. This shift comes

Starting point is 00:01:58 after a Washington Post investigation found that political news publishers are receiving less visibility on Meta's platform, leading to a more than 50% drop in engagement for that group. In response to decreased engagement on Meta's platforms and Google, digital news publishers are turning to WhatsApp channels. The New York Times reporting that outlets like CNN and the Financial Times are thriving on the platform, seeing significant growth in audience engagement and gaining millions of followers. As publishers pull back from Instagram, TikTok announced a new feature yesterday

Starting point is 00:02:34 designed to keep audiences from flipping out. The new tool, called Flip Stories, lets brands and creators add a second slide to every story that can be unlocked with a flip gesture. With Flip Stories, brands can showcase promotions, unveil products, share exclusive messages, offer behind-the-scenes glimpses, that sort of thing. Here's how it works.

Starting point is 00:02:57 To create a Flip Story once it's enabled in your account, just go to the Create page and toggle to the Story option. You'll then find an option to add a flip story, which will let you upload two sides of your content to your story. You can either take photos directly from the create page or upload photos from your device. Currently, flip stories only supports image uploads. To view a flip story, users will press the hold to flip button on the first slide to reveal the hidden content, which will play for a few seconds. Brands and creators will also have access to a separate list of viewers who engaged with the second side. Looking for the top social platform to drive purchases?

Starting point is 00:03:41 New research might surprise you. Snapchat is taking the crown for influencer-driven shopping, at least according to a new survey from eMarketers. 85% of users reported making a purchase after seeing a product showcased by a creator on the app. Snapchat outperformed TikTok, X, and even Instagram in this category, leaving YouTube trailing behind, despite the clout of YouTube creators like MrBeast and Logan Paul. The survey also found that creators were most effective at getting Gen Z to make a purchase. Four out of five Gen Z shoppers bought something because of creator or influencer content, compared to just one-fifth of baby boomer shoppers.

Starting point is 00:04:23 Even Gen X showed surprising engagement with two out of five making creator-driven purchases. Meanwhile, Facebook lagged behind with the lowest rate of influencer-driven shopping. Microsoft Ads announced a slew of updates today. First, advertisers can now access search term insights reports. These help advertisers understand how users find their business by analyzing the specific search terms that led to their ads being displayed during a particular time period. Reports then organize these terms into relevant categories and provide key performance metrics. Performance Max also continues to support a pilot for brand exclusions, letting advertisers specify which branded search queries they want to avoid showing ads for. And coming the middle of the month, URL rules at the asset group level will enter pilot testing along with personalized recommendations for upgrading dynamic search ads to Performance Max. Display ads now offer more bidding strategies and targeting options. Advertisers

Starting point is 00:05:25 can choose from manual CPC, enhanced CPC, and maximize conversions with CPA targets. Targeting options include in-market audiences, dynamic remarketing, and even LinkedIn profile targeting, among others. There are also a bunch of smaller updates, some new brand safety options, new recommendations for advertisers using automated bidding, some AI updates. All those smaller items are detailed in today's email newsletter, which you can sign up to for free by tapping the link at the top of the show notes or going to todayindigital.com slash newsletter. A few weeks ago, reports emerged that Google was testing a new shopping search interface.

Starting point is 00:06:05 Now, looks like that update is rolling out, showcasing a new logo and a more e-commerce friendly layout, complete with large search refinement boxes. The updated interface also features a new refine results dashboard in the side panel. Users have noted seeing both the old and new interfaces on desktop, suggesting a somewhat staggered rollout. We have some examples of what it looks like in today's email newsletter. And a couple of small stories to wrap us up. Threads, that's Meta's Twitter competitor, now lets users tag their location. This feature, though, doesn't provide the exact location, like on a map, like Instagram or Snapchat. Instead, the feature lets users give their followers an approximate idea of their location by sharing things like a city name, neighborhood or restaurant. By tapping on a tagged location in a threads post, followers can explore other posts from that area.

Starting point is 00:07:16 And finally, after a brief hiatus, YouTube's missing hits are back. The company struck a new deal with SESAC, the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers, to restore hit songs from artists like Adele and Nirvana that were removed over the weekend. SESAC says that YouTube unilaterally removed the tracks before the old agreement had expired. The restored music will gradually reappear across YouTube services in the next couple of days. Yesterday was a stat holiday in Canada, so we had that marketing science interview, which meant I didn't get a chance to tell you about a big milestone that we crossed with yesterday's episode. It was our 2000th episode. We're doing this for a little over four years now. And so it's kind of nice to see that tick over, especially for an industry where not many podcasts get past 20 episodes, let alone 200.

Starting point is 00:07:54 We are pretty proud of our 2000. That's it for today. See you tomorrow. It's the season for new styles and you love to shop for jackets and boots. 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.

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Today in Digital Marketing - A Surprising Drop for Instagram

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