Today in Digital Marketing - 🐦 Bird Brained
Episode Date: July 31, 2023Why experts say the X super-app is doomed from the start. Instagram is testing some nice generative AI tools that can help your organic content. A new B2B ad network launches. And the new Ad disclosur...e labels at Bing are almost invisible. Is this good news for marketers?.📰 Subscribe FREE to our free daily newsletter.Thanks to our sponsors!- Go to HelloFresh.com/digital16 and use code digital16 for 16 free meals plus free shipping✨ 𝗚𝗢 𝗣𝗥𝗘𝗠𝗜𝗨𝗠! ✨Get these exclusive benefits when you upgrade:✅ Listen ad-free✅ Weekly Meta Ad platform updates with Andrew Foxwell✅ Weekly Google Ad platform updates with Jyll Saskin Gales✅ Earlier episodes each day✅ Story links in show notes✅ “Skip to story” audio chapters✅ Member-exclusive Slack channels✅ Marketing headlines each morning in Slack✅ 30% off our Newsletter✅ Back catalog of 30+ marketing science interviews✅ Discounts on marketing tools✅...and a lot more!Check it out: todayindigital.com/premium.🔘 Follow us on social media🎙️ Subscribe free to our other podcast "Behind the Ad"🆘 Need help with your social media? Check us out: engageQ digital.AI Tool ReportLearn AI in 5 Minutes a Day! We'll teach you how to save time and earn more with AI. Join 70,000+ free daily readers for trending tools, productivity-boosting prompts, the latest news, and more.Check it out!.If you like Today in Digital Marketing, you’ll love Morning Brew.Get smarter in 5 minutes (and it's free!)There's a reason more than 4 million marketers and business people start their day with Morning Brew - the daily email that delivers the latest news from marketing to the ad business to social media. Business and marketing news doesn't have to be boring...make your mornings more enjoyable, for free.Check it out!.🤝 Join our Slack: todayindigital.com/slack📰 Get The Top Story each day on LinkedIn.✉️ Contact Us: Email or Send Voicemail⚾ Pitch Us a Story: Fill in this form📈 Reach Marketers: Book Ad🗞️ Classified Ads: Book Now🙂 Rate and Review.ABOUT THIS PODCASTToday in Digital Marketing is hosted by Tod Maffin and produced by engageQ digital on the traditional territories of the Snuneymuxw First Nation on Vancouver Island, Canada. Associate Producer: Steph Gunn. Ad Coordination: RedCircle. Production Coordinator: Sarah Guild. Theme Composer: Mark Blevis. Music rights: Source Audio.🎒UPGRADE YOUR SKILLS• Inside Google Ads with Jyll Saskin Gales• Google Ads for Beginners with Jyll Saskin Gales• Foxwell Slack Group and Courses .Some links in these show notes may provide affiliate revenue to us.Our Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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It is Monday, July 31st. Today, why experts say the X super app is doomed from the start.
Instagram is testing some nice generative AI tools that can help your organic content,
a new B2B ad network launches, and the new ad disclosure labels at Bing are almost invisible.
Is this good news for marketers? I'm Todd Maffin. That's ahead today in digital marketing. Elon Musk's move to
turn X into an everything app like China's WeChat, the app that combines chat, dating, payments,
social media, and pretty much everything else, may already be doomed. While Musk sees this as a path
to profitability, an interesting think piece up on Business Insider today suggests he might be missing the major plot point. The U.S. isn't
China. A big challenge for Musk is that WeChat was originally designed as an all-in-one app from
its inception, giving it a head start, contributing to its success and its now more than 1.3 billion
monthly active users, far ahead of Twitter's 368 million. The piece notes that a big part of WeChat's success
is also because of China's strict tech censorship,
which bans major Western competitors
like Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
Quote, but when Musk looks at these user numbers
and simply assumes that adding functions to X
will make it the WeChat of the West,
he's missing the point.
WeChat is a social ecosystem in itself
that's locked its users in
from the get-go, something that Facebook, and the entity formerly known as Twitter,
will likely never be able to achieve. That's not to say Musk can't find a way to make these
features appealing enough to the Western world to lock more consumers into a potential X ecosystem,
but it's worth noting that when Tencent introduced WeChat over a decade ago, the digital space in China was still growing and lacked a major power player.
Musk, however, is trying to carve out a space in a crowded tech market.
Right now, we have yet to see or hear enough about X to know for sure if he even stands a chance of winning.
But Musk may be too late to the game for the odds to be in his favor.
Unquote.
Heads up brand managers who have admin access to your company's Twitter account.
Scammers are now targeting its paying blue subscribers with phishing emails that mimic X.
According to recent reports, these fraudulent emails have the subject line,
preserve your status, transition smoothly, prompting the recipients to switch their
subscription from Twitter Blue to X. Clicking on a link takes the user to a site that,
you guessed it, has no connection to Twitter or X. The URLs then direct users to a seemingly
legitimate API authorization screen, requesting permission
to use a program that impersonates an official Twitter app. Opting to authorize the app grants
the hackers almost full control over the account. More generative AI tools are coming soon to
Instagram, including AI stickers. This is a sticker tool for posts and stories, which will let you create custom graphics based on text prompts.
The platform also lets you now remove or replace elements of your pictures within the creation process, including an AI brush that lets you replace parts of your image by using generative AI to fill in the gaps and restyle.
This will let you recreate sections of an uploaded image with text prompts.
Instagram is also testing a new AI chatbot, similar, by the way, to Snap's My AI,
built into DMs, which you can summon by typing at AI into the chat field and ask it questions.
Instagram is also testing another DM AI tool that summarizes your inbox messages for you.
Finally, and I actually think this is great,
Instagram is adding new labels to content
that identify when an image has been created by AI.
Brands and creators will also be asked
to add a created by AI marker
to posts uploaded from other tools.
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The influencer marketing platform JoinBrands is the latest company playing matchmaker between TikTok creators and advertisers.
The company recently launched an integration with TikTok's Spark Ads format.
Spark Ads let advertisers access pre-existing creator content and use it
in their campaigns with the creator's consent. Now, join brands corporate partners can access
this feature without a TikTok account. Beyond TikTok, the marketing platform also features
built-in ad tools for reels, YouTube shorts, and even Amazon shoppable videos. Brands pay to use
the platform only after a creator accepts their job and can
maintain full content rights to reuse and repurpose promotional materials.
The fintech giant Intuit has launched a B2B ad network targeting small businesses called SMB
Media Labs. The new ad network lets brands and marketers target QuickBooks customers
via several digital media properties
like social platforms, like Meta,
audio, podcasts, online publishers.
Vizio will be its exclusive connected TV partner.
The ads will be designed for QuickBooks online customers
in the US based on their type of business,
product offerings, and location.
The company said that
instead of a self-serve setup, advertisers will work with its account managers and media planners
on strategy. Into its core products also include TurboTax, Credit Karma, and MailChimp.
And finally, two small items to wrap up. First, your brand's followers will soon be able to slide into your threads DMs.
Instagram's head recently confirmed the app is adding support for direct messaging.
Meta's new platform is continuing to evolve with recent updates like translation and a new following tab.
And soon, looks like brands will be able to chat with users without leaving the platform.
Second, seems like Microsoft ads in Bing search results
are adopting a hide and seek approach with their ad labels.
Typically, the ad label appears before the description line,
often with a different colored background.
But Search Engine Roundtable spotted today
some testing of very discreet looking ad labels with,
I mean, it's basically microscope size text,
the same color as the body copy, no background. We have an image of the test in today's newsletter.
Go look. I challenge you in the first five seconds to even be able to see the ad notification. You can never overlook me. Believed in myself and look where it took me.
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See you tomorrow.