Today in Digital Marketing - Another F%$#& Podcast Episode!

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today, TikTok moves closer to being an e-commerce platform. The surprising effect profanity has on your product reviews. The metaverse marketing campaign that lets you play as an inanimate object. A fix for YouTube's rampant spam problem. And always imitated, never forgotten, it's the return of the lightning round. It's Thursday, June 30th. I'm Todd Maffin. Here's what you missed today in digital marketing. Before we begin, an apology to those of you on the free feed. Some of you have reported hearing an ad dropping smack dab in the middle of the show, in addition to the regular pre-roll position. Turns out that was a bug from our hosting platform

Starting point is 00:00:38 side. Not something we were suggesting you do on purpose. They say they've identified the glitch and fixed it. Please let me know if you hear it again, But hopefully the bugs are all out now. Okay, onward. TikTok is testing a new shop feed tab, which is a lot like Instagram's as it lets consumers browse and buy products from a variety of categories in the app. TechCrunch was the first to report this. The Shop tab is currently being tested in Indonesia, and the company says it will serve as a hub for products being sold in TikTok Shop, a shopping feature that lets merchants sell products directly on TikTok. According to screenshots being circulated, the new Shop Feed tab appears next to the following and for you tabs. The tab

Starting point is 00:01:25 features a search bar with different shopping categories like beauty, women's wear, electronics, kitchen, footwear, and more. The tab can also apparently advertise perks like free shipping on select purchases. Other items we've seen in there include orders, so obviously designed to help consumers keep track of shipments and returns. Vouchers, which are unused, used and invalid coupons. Payment, which lets customers manage billing info. And a tab called messages. It's a little unclear what this is for, but it is most likely going to be used to let people message sellers. TikTok did not specify when or if it will expand the shop tab to more markets.

Starting point is 00:02:02 But the good money is on soon and everywhere else. One of the primary functions of a third-party social media platform like Sprout Social or Agorapulse is to moderate the comments people post on your brand's content. You can hide comments, delete them, even ban the person if they're being a troll. Sometimes brand managers hide comments or product reviews that use profanity because they think seeing those might negatively impact consumers' feelings about them. Sometimes the platforms do that for us. Amazon and TripAdvisor prohibit the use of swear words. But have we got that wrong? Could leaving profanity in actually help our brand? That's what Catherine

Starting point is 00:02:46 Lafreniere set out to discover. She is an assistant professor at the Dillon School of Business at the University of Lethbridge. She and her colleagues last month published an academic research paper called The Power of Profanity, The Meaning and Impact of Swear Words in Word of Mouth. She spoke with me earlier. And parents, here's your warning, some bad words ahead. We found that the presence of swear words in a review would increase the number of helpful votes that the review received. This was studied on both Amazon and Yelp reviews, and we saw through experimental studies that it also increased perceptions of the product where people liked the product under review a little bit more when there was a swear word present in the explanation of the review. Right. So the helpful thing you're mentioning is those platforms have a button that lets people indicate whether or not they perceive that review to be helpful.

Starting point is 00:03:43 So that was your primary measure? Yes, for the field data, it was. Was there a difference between people using swear words positively or negatively? I'm thinking like, this was a fucking amazing meal would be positive, but this dishwasher is fucking loud would be negative. Was there a difference in the usage, positive or negative use? Under both positive and negative reviews, the review was considered to be more helpful. But of course, for an extremely negative review with the use of the swear word, then people would like the product a little bit

Starting point is 00:04:18 less. But for an extremely positive review because of the swear word, people would like it more. But under both situations, whether it was negative or positive, they found it to be more useful and helpful. Did that surprise you going into what perhaps you might have expected? It definitely did. So we're taught about swear words being bad, and yet we're seeing them all around us, not just in our daily conversations, in our daily lives, but especially online.

Starting point is 00:04:51 Up to 8% of Twitter posts and Yelp reviews are containing at least one swear word. And so it was really important for us to see why it was valuable to readers, what was the point of even having them, to see that it was not necessarily acceptable, but at least helpful in a more business context, really surprised us. Our full conversation is coming this Saturday exclusively to the Premium Podcast feed. You will also learn whether there's a difference between reviewing a product

Starting point is 00:05:24 versus reviewing a service-based business, whether a community manager should match the language and also occasionally use profanity in brand replies, how much the benefits of profanity extends to ad copy and creative, and how much she recommends you change your brand's community guidelines to account for this brave new world. You can sign up to the premium podcast feed right now by tapping the link in the episode notes or going to todayindigital.com slash premium feed. You'll get this interview and the back episodes of all our previous Deep Dive Weekend episodes, plus the regular daily feed, but with no ads, better audio quality, story chapters, story links, and much more. Again, the link is in the

Starting point is 00:06:06 show notes or go to todayindigital.com slash premium feed. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk-free. Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses, data breaches, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. If you're looking for metaverse campaign inspiration, here's how one brand is merging in-game and IRL marketing. Pringles recently launched a contest that will offer one winner the chance to get paid $24,000

Starting point is 00:06:50 to work inside a video game as a non-playable character. The job? A Pringles vending machine refiller in the game Train Sim World 2. If you're not familiar with video games, these non-playable characters, known as NPCs, are the other people in the game who are controlled by the game's software and not by players. So if your game takes place in a city and you see pedestrians walking around, those are NPCs. Ads promoting the contest show existing NPCs in the game not thrilled about the prospect of a human joining them and getting paid. To apply for the job, applicants must take a selfie or a video posted on social media with the tag Pringles stay in the game and a comment explaining why they would be best at the vending machine gig. Mr. Pringle will narrow it down to 50 applicants will then be judged by a panel to select the winner. The winner will be virtually reproduced to become an avatar in the game and immortalized forever as a Pringles

Starting point is 00:07:54 employee. YouTube is taking action against comment spam that impersonates brands or creators. Today, the platform announced three new updates to reduce its comment spam problem. First, by removing the ability to hide subscriber counts. Now, by the end of July, channels will no longer be able to hide their subscriber counts. Similar to checking if an account is verified, checking subscriber counts has often been an easy way to determine whether or not they are a legitimate channel. Second, by expanding content moderation tools for brands and creators, you'll be able to use the platform's new Increase Strictness moderation setting, which will filter out more spam and hopefully identify more abuse comments. And finally, by limiting the number of special characters used in channel names, some characters can be used to impersonate and look like other channel names.

Starting point is 00:08:53 Which brings us to, it's back baby, the lightning round. You can now delete Instagram from the app. If you've had enough of Zuck, Instagram lets you do it directly from the mobile app. This is something that Apple kind of forced them into. Previously, you had to log in through a web browser on a desktop or mobile device to delete your account. Thank you. creator to a post and if the creator accepts the content will post on both the collaborators pages youtube is testing disappearing community posts in the app some select creators at least for now can set a time limit on their community posts which will expire after 24 or 72 hours in the community tab viewers will see when a post will expire at the top creators can see expired posts under archived similar to instagram stories and Instagram has revealed its brand new grant program for Black-owned businesses.

Starting point is 00:09:48 It's part of its Black Visionaries funding program, which will award $650,000 in grants to Black artists, designers, and Black-owned small businesses. The application deadline for this program is July 29th, and you can find the application by Googling 2022 Black Visionaries Grant Application. It is a stat holiday in Canada tomorrow. We call it Canada Day because we're good at maple syrup. Not so good with creative branding. So no show tomorrow.

Starting point is 00:10:20 Monday is July 4th, which is the American holiday. And we're taking that one off too. Not because we're lazy, but because we've learned that American holidays usually mean almost no news comes out for us to cover. And also because we're lazy. Today in Digital Marketing is produced by EngageQ Digital on the traditional territories of the Tsunami First Nation on Vancouver Island. Our associate producer is the intrepid Steph Gunn. Production coordinator, Sarah Guild. Podcast music licensing by Source Audio.

Starting point is 00:10:49 Ad coordination by Red Circle. And not many people know this, but our theme composer, Mark Blevis and me, used to be in the same band together. We tried real hard. Jimmy quit and Jodi got married. I should have known we'd never get that far. Oh, when I look back now, that summer seemed to last forever. I'm Todd Maffin. Have a restful long weekend, friends.

Starting point is 00:11:18 Premium podcast members, I'll see you Saturday for the deep dive episode on how profanity can be good for your brand. And everyone else, I'll see you on Tuesday.

Today in Digital Marketing - Another F%$#& Podcast Episode!

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