Today in Digital Marketing - Boycott? What Boycott?

Episode Date: December 18, 2020

It’s been a weird year, one mostly marked by declines in lots of metrics — but one channel is up. Way up. Also: Twitter comes up with a bad idea, a popular Wordpress plugin has a massive security hole, and one brand that boycotted Facebook ads is back.➡ Join our free Slack community! TodayInDigital.com/slack➡ Watch me produce this live at twitch.tv/todmaffin (about 12-3 PT weekdays)HELP SPREAD THE WORD:Tweet It: bit.ly/tweet-tidm to preview a tweet you can publishReview Us: RateThisPodcast.com/today ABOUT THE PODCAST:Source links and full transcripts: TodayInDigital.com Advertising: RedCircle.com/brands and TodayInDigital.com/adsClassified Ads: TodayInDigital.com/classifieds Leave a voicemail at TodayInDigital.com/voicemailTranscripts: See each episode at TodayInDigital.com Email list: TodayInDigital.com/email Theme music: Mark Blevis (all other music licensed by Source Audio)TOD’S SOCIAL MEDIA:Twitter: twitter.com/todmaffinLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/todmaffinTod’s agency: engageQ.comTikTok: /tiktok.com/@todmaffinTwitch: twitch.tv/todmaffin (game livestreaming)Today in Digital Marketing is hosted by Tod Maffin (https://TodMaffin.com) and produced by engageQ digital (https://engageQ.com). Subscribe at https://TodayInDigital.com or wherever you get your podcasts.Our Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected, be Zen. Today, it's been a weird year, one mostly marked by declines in lots of metrics, Be protected. Be Zen. Facebook ads is back. It's Friday, December 18th, 2020. Happy Arabic Language Day. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital, and here's what you missed today in digital marketing. We're all doing it right about now, aren't we? Going through last year's marketing efforts, pulling reports, trying to figure out what worked best, what channels really delivered more than we expected. Some new research out now shows that as a whole, the influencer marketing category grew. Before we talk about it, though, one very important consideration here as you listen to this story. These data are from Clear, which is in itself an influencer marketing platform. So, you know, it's not like they don't have a dog in this race.

But if we are willing to believe their numbers, they say influencer collaborations had 57% more reach and impact in 2020 compared to last year. And where is the big growth? TikTok, of course. Sponsorship activity there more than doubled, 130% up. Sponsored Instagram posts were down 19% year over year, but their Stories counterpart was up 32%. The survey pulled data from more than 5,000 influencers. A separate study from Takumi, also an influencer marketing agency, by the way, see previous disclaimer, that survey said 73% of marketers in the US, UK, and Germany reported that they

put more resources into influencer marketing than the previous year. Quoting MarketingDive.com, as Gen Z's importance to influencer marketing crystallizes, brands will have to tailor their messages and those of their influencer partners to the demographic. Clear's report notes that 80% of brands made a statement in support of Black Lives Matter in 2020, a baseline move to engage with a demographic

that demands that brands support social causes. So this sounds like a terrible idea. In a move it says is designed to spark more engagement on its platform, Twitter is testing a new feature that will highlight interests you have in common with other users who you don't follow. The example the company gave

is someone replying to a tweet, then in the composer window at the bottom it reads, you have things in common. You and Maria both follow the topics soccer, dogs, and rap. I have looked at what Facebook thinks my interests are. If Twitter is as accurate, this is just going to be stupid. Facebook thinks, by the way, I'm interested in cars and cricket. I guarantee I am not interested in either. Not in the slightest, but apparently my profile was tracked to enough news sites maybe or whatever to make it think that. Socialmediatoday.com thinks it could usher in a whole new wave of dumbass marketing pitches. Quoting them, you ever get pitches from marketers that try to personalize the message with generic elements?

Imagine these prompts being added into the mix. Hey, insert name, I see that you're interested in Star Wars. Isn't the Mandalorian great? Anyway, you should check out our new insert product here. In fact, we could see this rapidly becoming the primary use, which could make it an extra annoying feature, unquote. Twitter says, It's designed to humanize people. Quoting a rep there,

in the heat of the moment, people can forget there's another human behind a Twitter account. By showing what we have in common, we hope to remind people of what connects us as a starting point, unquote. Again, social media today's response, quote, so when you go and tell that idiot to shut the heck up

in the most polite and direct terms you can come up with, you'll now see that they also like dogs and then rethink your approach? Maybe? Probably not, unquote. This is just a test, luckily, and hopefully Twitter will drop this and get busy working on that edit button. 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 your brand's website uses WordPress, there is a pretty good chance that the contact form plugin you use is called Contact Form 7. If that's you, be aware of a major security hole the developers have advised of. Apparently, hackers can use the file upload functionality in your forms to send code that will do bad things on your server, like let them take over your website or erase e-commerce databases full of customer information. Yes, the plugin does have file name sanitization that looks for troublesome file names and extensions, but apparently the one with the potential exploit wasn't being caught. So consider this an urgent fix. The newest version is 7.532.

If you have 7.531 or under, your website is vulnerable to this, and you should update the plugin immediately. It will take a miracle. That's how one financial economist describes what will be needed to keep retail sales positive this month. Obviously, the pandemic and the large-scale lockdowns, particularly harsh in the U.S., all of that, no surprise, affecting in-person shopping. Some data from the National Retail Federation says retail sales fell 1.1% last month. It may not sound like a lot, but sales don't generally fall. In fact, that 1.1 percent is worse than experts had forecast and was the biggest sales drop in seven months.

Quoting MediaPost, some of the worst results came in apparel, down 6.8 percent, electronics, down 3.5 percent, and department stores, all major gift categories. And online sales did gain, but only by an anemic 0.2%, unquote. One company, which tracks foot traffic in shopping centers, said in every single one of its mall clients, Black Friday foot traffic was down year over year, in some cases down more than 58%. Remember back in June, it seemed like every company was pulling ads off of Facebook, all part of a big boycott. And remember how when the numbers for that quarter came in, it was clear that the boycott did absolutely nothing to Facebook's balance sheet.

Their ad revenue was actually up 22% year over year during the period when that big boycott was happening. And remember Unilever? They were like, nah, we're going to keep this boycott up through to the end of the year as part of our Unilever responsibility framework, whatever the hell that is. Anyway, hey, guess what? 2021 will be a new year, and with it, the Unilever boycott is over. The company announcing today it will lift its freeze on paid social media advertising starting in January.

It says it thinks Facebook learned its lesson. Actually, Unilever never formally aligned itself with the stop hate for profit boycott that everyone else was doing. They say the timing of their boycott, purely coincidental. Nah, we were going to have our own anyway. We have a great relationship with the platforms. Please don't ban our ad account, Mr. Zuckerberg. Thank you. Merry Christmas, sir.

And that puts paid to another week. Our production assistant is Sarah Guild. Our theme is by Mark Levis. Music licensing by Source Audio. This podcast is produced by our agency. Find us at engageq.com. Full transcripts to every episode are on our website, todayindigital.com. I'm Todd Mathen.

Have a restful and safe weekend, friends, and I will talk to you on Monday.