Today in Digital Marketing - Add "Google Cameos" to Your Brand's Next Video Strategy

Starting point is 00:00:01 It is Wednesday, December 18th, 2019. Happy Arabic Language Day. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital. Today, why your next video strategy may include something called Google Cameos. What costs more, clicks on Facebook or clicks on Twitter? Instagram is set to add even more restrictions to promotions. And Snapchat gets, shall we call it, inspired by TikTok? Here's what you missed today in digital marketing. I probably shouldn't be as excited about this as

Starting point is 00:00:33 I am, but Instagram has moved story mention notifications to a new place. And why am I excited? Because no longer does this mean that you get a you have a new message notification. Previously, anytime anyone mentioned your brand's Instagram account in a story, that came to you as a DM from that person, as if they'd sent you an actual direct message. So the notification badge would light up, you'd switch to your brand's account, you'd go check thinking that there was a message from a customer,

Starting point is 00:01:03 and all it was was a message saying so-and-so mentioned you in their story. And even worse, if you waited more than 24 hours to check, it would still say that they mentioned you, but it wouldn't show you the story, because of course it had expired. Now, it appears Instagram has moved, or is in the process of moving, that notification to the notifications panel. The same place where your likes notifications are. The same place where your likes notifications are. The same place where it should have been. Hello, I'm going to interrupt myself

Starting point is 00:01:29 because after I wrote the script for this episode, voiced it, and then mixed it, this seemed to stop working and notifications are back in the DM. So I don't know, maybe it was just a test that Instagram was doing. Let's hope that it's on its way. Okay, back to the show.

Starting point is 00:01:47 Snapchat has launched a new ad format called a trailer reaction lens. And it's actually pretty smart. When you use this lens, you get to watch a video while your smartphone records your reaction to that video. And they are launching it with a trailer

Starting point is 00:02:03 for the upcoming Top Gun movie. If this sounds familiar to you, then I am guessing you spend some time on TikTok where that app's React feature works pretty much the same way. More and more, Google wants to prevent people from clicking away from their search result screens and over to,

Starting point is 00:02:25 you know, your website. It's part of what some people call their zero-click initiative. And it looks like they are adding another leg to that stool. Is that even a metaphor? And a leg that could have implications for brand marketers. Some people this week have been getting invitations to record what Google is calling cameos. These are short videos in, God help us, stories format, so we're talking vertical orientation, that answer specific questions. For now, it seems to be being tested with people who already take advantage of Google's knowledge panels. They have a special cameos smartphone app that will record your video.

Starting point is 00:03:02 And when SEO expert Barry Schwartz tried it, he reported his video was available in search within about 15 minutes. But if this gets more widely released, digital marketers may want to add an entirely new kind of video format to their content plan. Brief, vertical videos that answer specific questions like, how do I measure my shoe size? Or what's the best way to clean my gutters? If you want to see what these look like, go to Google on desktop and type in SEO Barry Schwartz. If you're in the B2B space and you're not planning to increase your marketing spend next year, you are in good company. Some recent research from SageFrogs shows that most B2B marketers they polled

Starting point is 00:03:47 expect their marketing budget to be about the same as it was in 2019. 56% said it would be steady. 41% said it would go up. Only 3% of B2B marketers expect their spend to go down in 2020. Those evil geniuses at Agorapulse's social media lab have done another really helpful test, this time to answer the question, which costs more? Clicks on Twitter ads or clicks on Facebook ads? As they usually do, they spent about $500 on each platform on two ads, essentially identical in creative. Twitter got 522 clicks at a cost of $1.20 per click. Facebook, 689 clicks at only 76 cents a click. So Facebook won

Starting point is 00:04:37 in terms of more clicks and at a cheaper price. Twitter did give more impressions for that budget, though, about 92,000 compared to Facebook's 77,000. In order for Twitter to equal the 689 clicks that Facebook got, they would have had to have spent about $826, as opposed to the $518 they spent on Facebook. In other words, an increase of 59% of their ad cost. Facebook says it will begin enforcing its policy that prohibits Instagram influencers from posting branded content that promotes things like vaping, tobacco, and weapons. They have had that as a policy for a while, of course, but apparently they weren't rigidly enforcing it. And that's going to change. And it is not just those categories.

Starting point is 00:05:27 They say that they will have an announcement soon on policy changes that affect brands that sell alcohol and diet products. No word on what those changes are other than the somewhat ominous phrase, special restrictions. Instagram is working on a back-end tool that will help influencers restrict young people from seeing their branded posts. Alright, time for the lightning round. Instagram has launched a new mode for stories that lets you promote multiple photos in a single story. Until now, you could only post one photo or video per story.

Starting point is 00:06:00 Google says its Discover performance reports are now showing more recent data than they used to. Back in September, they improved the Search performance report in this way, so now that increased pull rate is available in their Discover reporting. Hootsuite has added a couple of new optimizations for ad campaigns. Two-second video view and through-play goals are now available. Heads up if your robots.txt file includes a block for the Google News bot. Apparently that bot is just flat out ignoring your block and your web content might be

Starting point is 00:06:32 appearing in Google News. Sounds like it might be a bug. Yandex, the Russian search engine, says it's made a huge change to its algorithm. 1,500 changes, actually. One of which? Adding human reviewers to the mix to assess page quality like Google has done for years. And as of this week, Facebook's augmented reality ads should now be available to every advertiser, including you.

Starting point is 00:06:55 There's a great article from WeAreSM.com on how to set one up, which you really should try if it fits your brand voice, since many others are doing it. Link to that article is in the description. And finally, in the ever-entertaining pissing match between Chick-fil-A and Popeye's Chicken, score one for Popeye's. They are running small classified ads in newspapers all over the U.S., advertising, no, not their sandwiches, advertising for help wanted on Sundays. If you don't know, Chick-fil-A is owned by evangelical Christians, and every single one of their restaurants are closed Sundays. Popeyes decided to poke fun of them with classified ads, the headline of which reads, earn money on Sundays. And the text reads, requirements, experience making chicken

Starting point is 00:07:42 sandwiches, and must be available on Sundays. 30 points for Popeyes. Friends, I made it back into gold on Overwatch by riding the coattails of a Smurf. I'm not proud of that, but necessity is the mother of invention. If you have Alexa, you can add this to your flash briefing every day. Just search for Today in Digital Marketing on the Skill Store. And if your brand could use help with some of your social media content, engagement, or digital marketing, check out our agency at engageq.com. Follow me on social.

Starting point is 00:08:15 Links to my channels and agency are in this episode's description. I'm Todd Maffin. See you tomorrow.

Today in Digital Marketing - Add "Google Cameos" to Your Brand's Next Video Strategy

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