Today in Digital Marketing - Black Friday(s)... and Thursdays and Wednesdays and Tuesdays and....

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Tuesday, October 11th. I'm Todd Mathen. Today, more e-commerce warehouse and fulfillment centers opening, but I bet you can't guess which company's behind them. Also, the ever-creeping scope of Black Friday sales, FedEx warns of a slowdown, YouTube channels will finally get mentionable usernames, and Facebook decides to roll out its buggy and cluttered pages experience globally. Because that makes sense, right?

Starting point is 00:00:26 Here's what you missed today in digital marketing. Well, I didn't have this on my 2022 bingo card. It looks like TikTok is trying to compete now with Amazon. The platform is going all in after e-commerce and is planning to build its own U.S. product fulfillment centers, a strategy that could directly challenge the largest e-commerce company in the world. This according to multiple LinkedIn job postings. The postings indicate that TikTok is looking to build an, quote, international e-commerce fulfillment system, unquote, that will support domestic and cross-border e-commerce efforts,

Starting point is 00:01:02 including international warehousing, customs clearings, and supply chain systems. Just in case you were phased out at the beginning of this, we are talking about TikTok. The listings also added the company's systems will eventually consolidate parcels, transport goods between stages, and manage free returns. One role entails creating a new fulfillment standard from scratch. The posting says the center, quote, is a global team responsible for developing and growing our logistic solution, unquote, and will include product fulfillment by TikTok shop to its sellers. For now, it doesn't look like TikTok is planning to build out its own transportation unit like Amazon. Instead, the job postings suggest the company would work with

Starting point is 00:01:45 vendors for shipping, parcel consolidation, and transportation. Axios noted that the move signifies TikTok's commitment to e-commerce as its next major revenue stream following the explosive growth of its ads business. What's next? TikTok sending people to space? While we're on the topic of companies competing with Amazon, Prime Day 2, or I guess 1 maybe, since it's first, it launched today to get a head start on Black Friday sales, and more brands are following suit. Yesterday, Target announced that it will kick off its Black Friday deals three weeks earlier than last year. Week-long deals now run through November 26th and are available in-store, online, and in the Target app. New promotions will debut each Sunday for the next seven weeks, up until Thanksgiving weekend in the U.S. And why only have one weekend

Starting point is 00:02:37 dedicated to Black Friday when you could have multiple, apparently? Just like Amazon and now Target, direct-to-consumer brands are rethinking holiday sales this year to ease inflation. Digiday has a great report on that, quoting from that piece. Rather than concentrating on a single weekend, especially one with a fraught history for many ad buyers on which Facebook's ads manager would often have issues around Black Friday and Cyber Monday, DTC brands are joining the ranks of major retailers to tout holiday sales earlier this season. For some DTC brands, offering sales earlier allows more time for them to deal with possible shipping delays and other issues that often arise around Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It's true that the holiday creep feels like it starts sooner each year,

Starting point is 00:03:21 especially with retailers putting holiday decor on shelves earlier every season, and many see the holiday shopping season spreading out to take over the fourth quarter, especially this year as a result of inflation, unquote. Analysts, though, say it's a convincing tactic in the face of rising cost concerns among consumers, as those buyers are buying now rather than putting it off. More signs of inflation taking a bite out of commerce. FedEx says it expects to see a lower than usual shipping volume this Q4. In an internal memo recently sent to delivery contractors, the transportation company expects its peak season volume forecast to fall due to what it says is a, quote, fluid and challenging economic environment, unquote. The company's senior vice president attributed volume softness to macroeconomic trends like inflation.

Starting point is 00:04:16 So just how much lower will that volume go? We don't know right now, but according to the memo, detailed projections on those downward adjustments will be available on or about October 21st. In its push to get more momentum behind its TikTok clone shorts, YouTube is making it easier for brands to identify their channels on the platform. The company announcing yesterday it is finally introducing username handles, similar to the feature on TikTok or Instagram or Twitter. YouTube said handles join channel names as another way to identify a channel, but unlike channel names, handles are truly unique to each user.

Starting point is 00:04:56 Like other platforms, handles will be identified with an at before the username and will appear on channel pages and shorts and a way for users to mention your brand in comments, community posts, video descriptions, and so on. As of this week, the video sharing platform will begin rolling out handles gradually by notifying users when it's their turn to choose one, meaning some users will get to claim their handle first. YouTube noted the timing of when a creator will get access to the handle selection process depends on a number

Starting point is 00:05:25 of factors, including overall YouTube presence, subscriber count, and whether the channel is active or inactive. In most cases, if a channel already has a personalized URL, that will automatically become their default handle, or they can choose to change it as soon as the notification appears in YouTube Studio. Twitter continues its push to become a social commerce destination. The platform recently started testing new product display cards within tweets that let brands showcase products. According to screenshots, the company is working on a variety of product cards that can be attached to tweets.

Starting point is 00:06:04 These cards will refer consumers to either the direct product listing on your website or the shop on your Twitter profile. Social media today suggests that in conjunction with its new ad tools for products, the new card options may facilitate better product promotion in the app, which could lead to more shopping discovery on the platform. 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. Well, here's an interesting marketing tactic for your brand to tap into Be Real, the new kid on the block app.

Starting point is 00:06:59 Have consumers hang out at your business all day long until they receive the Be Real notification. That's exactly what Chipotle is doing. Hang out at your business all day long until they receive the Be Real notification. That's exactly what Chipotle is doing. The American fast food chain is back with its annual Halloween Burrito event in person this year. And the company wants its customers to post about it on Be Real. For a chance to win, people must be in costume at the restaurant chain on October 31st. and when they receive a notification from that app, then they must take a picture of themselves in costume, clearly at a Chipotle restaurant,

Starting point is 00:07:30 tag them, and then use a hashtag. On top of the Be Real activation, Chipotle is also giving away $25,000 to Cash App users to help cover the cost of Halloween costumes. Consumers taking part in the promotion in-store and through the Be Real and Cash App must be Chipotle Rewards members, which could help the chain gather that sweet, sweet first-party data. Almost two years ago, Facebook decided to change the way its page design was.

Starting point is 00:08:00 I don't mean its web page design, I mean your brand's fan page. The new version was widely derided as being cluttered and confusing, and it came with bugs. One that's still happening to people is where your brand page sends engagement notifications to your personal profile. This happens to me too. And since I run a social media engagement agency and have admin privs on the Facebook pages of our clients, my Facebook notifications are filled with the brand's notifications. This is something that I and others have reported to Facebook months ago, and it's still happening.

Starting point is 00:08:34 Honestly, it makes Facebook pretty much unusable as a personal account. But Facebook called this new version the New Pages Experience, and now that it has sufficiently pissed off the required quota, Facebook says it has started rolling it out globally to small and medium-sized businesses, too, so that they can also feel the emotional damage. Meta says reports of the new Pages experience being subpar can't possibly be true. After all, according to their announcement, it features a more streamlined layout, a dashboard to manage activities from one central location, and easier navigation between business and personal pages.

Starting point is 00:09:19 Incidentally, by easier navigation, what they mean here is you will tap the wrong notification and then you will suddenly be logged into your brand's account. And you're either commenting as that until you figure out how to switch back. And to do that, you either hold down or tap the button right menu icon, I think. I really don't know why they did this in the first place. The previous page design worked fine. We all knew where everything was. And if we wanted to act as our brand, we'd just type business instead of www or on mobile app, use their pages app. Which, to be fair, for me, broke irreparably about a year ago now. But, you know, progress.

Starting point is 00:09:53 Which brings us to the new lightning round experience. Twitter has updated its professional accounts feature with a new analytics home display, which shows an overview of your account's performance, including total tweet impressions, engagement rate, profile visits, and link clicks. YouTube has provided some new details about its Data Stories analytics test, which provides insight into your channel's performance in stories-like format. Data Stories can be displayed for four elements, audience, content, monetization, and education about YouTube. Some stories will highlight key areas of potential,

Starting point is 00:10:25 while others will provide tips on how to improve your channel performance. Brands in India are getting aggressive with spamming users on WhatsApp. In recent months, a large number of people in India, WhatsApp's largest market by users, have complained about the app's rampant spam problem. Some users also report that brands and businesses reach their inbox despite blocking them. A third of marketers plan to increase their promotional activity this holiday season compared to 13 percent last year to recoup projected losses. Paid search continues to rank first among targeting strategies, followed by affiliate marketing and partnerships.

Starting point is 00:11:03 Prime Day deal. Not this year. A recent study claims that some Prime Day discounts could actually be price hikes. According to the report, some prices that appear to be marked down or discounted actually reflect the item's regular price, and in some cases, a so-called discount could actually reflect an increase. Please help me. Please help me. I cannot stop playing Disney Dreamlight Valley. I have now opened up the region where I can have pumpkins.

Starting point is 00:11:43 Apparently pumpkin souffles or pumpkin pops are very profitable. Anyway, the point is that I'm like planning my days around when the characters in the game are going to be up because the game plays in real time so if you need to talk to goofy i can't believe i'm saying this but if you need to talk to goofy you can't play the game when he's asleep because he has regular yeah never mind remember you can get this podcast as a daily email newsletter too, complete with images, charts, related videos, and links to dive deeper. And there is a free tier as well. You'll get an issue every Friday on that tier. The newsletter comes out about an hour before the podcast drops. Just go to todayindigital.com slash newsletter to sign up or tap

Starting point is 00:12:21 the link in the show notes. We have had some phenomenal weather. I don't know what we did to deserve it, but I am definitely here for it. Still biking weather, still kind of short sleeve weather. Now that I've said it, of course, it's going to turn. So, you know, there's that. All right. Thanks for listening. I'm Todd Maffin. See you tomorrow. Outro Music 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. And before you buy anything,

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Today in Digital Marketing - Black Friday(s)... and Thursdays and Wednesdays and Tuesdays and....

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