Today in Digital Marketing - Call It a Comeback!

Starting point is 00:00:01 It's Friday, January 27th. Today, victory in the Clone Wars. For better or worse, Meta's TikTok copycat is gaining traction. Also, Instagram launches B2B lead forms, Twitter's new verified views aren't, and a bug at YouTube has disrupted the space-time continuum. I'm Todd Maffin. That's ahead today in digital marketing. TikTok's threat to meta may be easing as reels are starting to gain traction with users. After a tough year for meta, internal documents obtained by the Wall Street Journal this week suggest the company is starting to make a comeback from the blow that Apple dealt social media platforms in 2022 as users are watching its short-form videos and ad targeting is improving as a result of its increased investment in AI. AI tools have also helped boost reels. Last summer, Meta was struggling to get users to adopt its TikTok clone, but the documents seen by the

Starting point is 00:00:57 journal indicate that Facebook, which remains Meta's biggest moneymaker, has seen viewership increase. During an internal discussion in October, company executives, including Mark Zuckerberg, credited improvements to both Facebook's algorithms and the computing systems on which they run with a 20% boost in Reels consumption. While Apple's privacy changes continue to be a source of pain for digital marketers, Meta's VP of Analytics noted they will no longer be a drag on earnings, thanks to the company's adaptation efforts. Despite industry skepticism,

Starting point is 00:01:31 Meta appears to be making progress on at least some key fronts, according to the journal's review of documents. But it's not all sunshine and rainbows. Quoting the report, they also contain reason for caution. They suggest that even as time spent on Meta's apps had increased as of the middle of last quarter, content production and engagement had continued to fall, especially among young people. Creation of Instagram's ephemeral Stories posts, until recently the principal bright spot for user-generated content,

Starting point is 00:02:00 was running about 10% below the company's expectations in the middle of last quarter, and users on both Facebook and Instagram were posting and commenting less. The report added that making money on Reels also remains a hurdle, because ads in Reels don't currently sell for as much as those sold against regular posts and stories. The format's growing share of content consumption was hurting ad revenue. As a result, the company reduced promoting reels by about a tenth to protect its earnings. Instagram is testing a new lead form option

Starting point is 00:02:39 as a call to action button on business profiles. With this update, users can select add lead form as an action button on business profiles. With this update, users can select add lead form as an action button on their profile. To further guide queries, you can choose either a standard data collection CTA or add your own custom questions. The process lets you choose multiple choice or short answer responses, which could be a handy way to gain information about your brand's profile visitors. Although Instagram has not officially announced the new feature, more businesses are reporting having the option, so it may be worth checking your Instagram's CTA options to see if you have access to it.

Starting point is 00:03:17 Even the views are getting verified on Twitter. This week, several platform users started to notice a new verified views counter appearing on their tweets. So WTF are verified views? It seems to be the regular tweet view counter that was recently added, but with a different name. Social media today, though, reports that to further weed out spam, Musk has proposed adding a counter for interactions from verified users only, meaning those paying for Twitter Blue. Quoting the report,

Starting point is 00:03:49 Ideally, Twitter would be individually confirming that each user who gets a blue checkmark is in fact a real human being. But right now, Twitter is relying on what it calls payment verification, or the fact that bots can't use credit cards and bot providers won't be able to afford to verify millions of fake accounts. And if Twitter can get the majority of people to sign up, that could indeed work. But it won't. Because Twitter can't. Because the vast, vast majority of Twitter users ain't gonna pay $8 to get a blue tick next to their username in the app. Unquote. According to a recent analysis, there are about 325,000 Twitter Blue subscribers currently active on the platform, which is around 0.14% of Twitter's total user base.

Starting point is 00:04:48 As the report points out, Twitter would presumably need about 70% of its total users to pay for Twitter Blue before something like verified views would even be relevant. And finally, someone really tried to fake having the oldest video on YouTube. Recently, a video was posted that appeared to have been uploaded on April 5th, 2005, overtaking the Me at the Zoo video as the oldest video on the platform. But that date was only able to appear due to a bug. In a statement to The Verge, a spokesperson for YouTube said, quote, we are aware of an issue that allowed the upload date of this video to be changed

Starting point is 00:05:28 and at working on a fix, rest assured the oldest video on YouTube will always be me at the zoo. So the new monitor, I love it. Turns out the issue was I should have gotten 4K instead of 1080 or whatever it was. Didn't realize it would make that much of a difference, but there you go. Apparently it does. 1.4 million views. That's where my TikTok video is now. Crazy.

Starting point is 00:05:57 And we're seeing some of those people trickle into our Slack. So if you are not in our Slack group, you can find a link to it in our show notes or go to todayindigital.com slash Slack. And also, new people, you may not realize that you can get this podcast as a daily email newsletter if you prefer, complete with images, related videos, links to dive deeper, charts. And there's also a free tier as well. People on that tier get an issue every Friday. The newsletter comes out about an hour before the podcast drops. So just go to todayindigital.com slash newsletter to sign up or tap the link in the show notes. Today in Digital Marketing is produced by EngageQ Digital on the traditional territories

Starting point is 00:06:34 of the Tsunamic First Nation on Vancouver Island. Our associate producer is Steph Gunn, production coordinator Sarah Guild, music licensing by Source Audio, ad coordination by Red Circle. And, you know, not many people know this, but our theme composer, Mark Blevis, actually a licensed registered counselor. I was telling him the other day just how hard it is trying to cover an industry that was always changing. He reminded me, as he usually does, that other eras had their challenges. He said in winter 1963, it felt like the world would freeze with John F. Kennedy and the Beatles. I'm Todd Maffin. Thanks for listening. Have a restful weekend, friends.

Starting point is 00:07:16 I'll see you again on Monday. I'm waking up, I'm waking up to a new life, a new life. Yes, I'm making up, I'm making up for the lost time, for the lost time. Yeah, give all that I can do.

Today in Digital Marketing - Call It a Comeback!

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