Today in Digital Marketing - Et tu, Reddit? 😪

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Starting point is 00:00:18 starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. Today, Facebook really does not want you knowing how Instagram works. Be protected. Be Zen. It's Friday, August 13th, 2021. Happy International Left-Handers Day, weirdos. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital, and here's what you missed today in digital marketing. We all know that Google controls a lot of our businesses. It owns the major search engine that provides us traffic,

Starting point is 00:01:00 it has the most used maps that provides us foot traffic, and it's got a huge number of consumer reviews. But how much does one affect the other? On the Friday Quiz, this question. Does Google look at the amount of customers and or reviews a website has to consider where to rank it in the search results? In other words, will a small number of reviews keep you lower in the rankings? The answer, later in the episode. You may have heard last week Facebook shut platform access off for some academics

Starting point is 00:01:38 using the platform's ads library. They were researching political ads and misinformation. Now, Facebook has done it again to some German researchers who were studying the Instagram algorithm. Facebook claims its beef with these isn't as much about them collecting data, but how they're collecting the data. Both programs relied on a browser plug-in that users could install to send back anonymized information of what was presented in their own feed. This, said the researchers, wasn't a violation of any Facebook terms, since everyone who provided data consented to participate. In the case of this German study, they say their research found that, quote, Instagram likely encouraged content creators to post pictures that fit specific representations of their body,

Starting point is 00:02:22 and that politicians were likely to reach a larger audience if they abstained from using text in their publications. Facebook denied both claims, unquote. They say the research is among the most advanced studies ever conducted on the platform. Last May, the researchers say Facebook asked them for a meeting and told them if they didn't cease and desist, Facebook would, quote, move to a more formal engagement, unquote. I guess Zuckerberg and company prefer thinly veiled threats over just coming out and saying, yeah, we'll probably sue you. Quoting from The Verge, the broader pattern is a troubling one.

Starting point is 00:03:00 The algorithms that manage news feeds on Facebook and Instagram are immensely powerful but poorly understood, and Facebook's policies make it difficult to study them objectively. In November, the company made similar legal threats against a browser called Friendly, which let users reorder their feeds chronologically. CrowdTangle, another popular tool for Facebook research, was acquired by the company in 2016. Well, yesterday we reported on TikTok's recent investment, which will end up bringing about $700 million into the company. Today, we may have learned what they're spending at least part of that money on.

Starting point is 00:03:38 And Redditors, you are not going to like it. It is a TikTok clone. Because of course it is. Most iOS users of their mobile app now should have a button to the right of the search bar. When you tap it, you will get a stream of videos just like you would on TikTok. Quoting TechCrunch, When presented with a video, which shows the poster who uploaded it and the subreddit it's from, users can upvote or downvote, comment, gift an award or share it.

Starting point is 00:04:09 Like TikTok, users can swipe up to see another video feeding content from subreddits the user is subscribed to, as well as related ones. For instance, if you're subscribed to printmaking, you might see content from pottery or bookbinding, unquote. This format has been in testing for about a year now, but this is the first broad push, and certainly the first that came with a big front-and-center UI change. A Reddit PR person, who I'm assuming was on loan from Facebook, said, quote, Reddit's mission is to bring community and belonging to everyone in the world. And subsequently, Reddit's video team's mission is to bring community through video. Unquote. People.

Starting point is 00:04:52 Can we all knock off the superlatives and just be honest with our users? Like, it's totally okay to say, well, we've watched TikTok grow, and now we want to let our users consume content that way too. Not everything has to be about uplifting communities, providing engaging and meaningful experiences, blah, blah, blah. The tech for this most likely came from Dubsmash, a TikTok clone they bought in December. Apparently both Facebook and Snapchat were sniffing around a potential acquisition of that app as well. Reddit currently attracts 50 million daily active visitors and hosts 100,000 active subreddits,

Starting point is 00:05:24 one of which is ours. Check us out at r slash Today in Digital. It's not every day we get a new ad format, but we got one today from Google. It's called the Full Screen Inline Ad. These are banner ads that take up the entire width of the screen and appear in line with the page content. Ads with this format will only show up below the fold, of course.

Starting point is 00:05:47 Nobody wants to see a banner right at the top. And will be in both automotive ads placements and responsive units. If you run a website that has AdSense ads, there's nothing you need to do extra here. If you have suitable ad placements, full screen inline ads will automatically start to appear on your site. Do you have business insurance? inline ads will automatically start to appear on your site. your financial losses, data breaches, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. So you are looking for a provider of some kind, like a copywriter or a photographer, and you checked out their LinkedIn profile. They've got it relatively fleshed out, including skills and services, but can you trust what they've

Starting point is 00:06:42 posted? A new update might help give services buyers a little more comfort. This update lets users get ranked and reviewed on the skills they list on their profile. If you're one of those freelancers or consultants and you have the services page enabled on your profile, you should have gotten an email from LinkedIn recently which reads in part, quote, You can now receive and view reviews as a service provider on LinkedIn. To see reviews you've received from past clients or to manage your reviews, simply go to your service page.

Starting point is 00:07:10 If you haven't received any reviews on your service page, be sure to start growing reviews by sending out review invites, unquote. Yes, invites. In a move apparently designed to keep bad reviews or trolls away, these LinkedIn reviews can only be left when you've been invited to leave one. And each user will only get 20 invite credits to spend on people they want reviews from. So hopefully we won't all start getting spammed with invite requests. You've seen their ridiculous Facebook ads before,

Starting point is 00:07:41 advertising the strangest mix of products. So strange that entire communities on Reddit and elsewhere have sprung up to track the ads. Thank you. Q2 numbers showed that revenue actually fell by 6% year over year. They posted a net loss of $111 million. To put that in perspective, yes, they lost money last year in Q2 as well, but only $11 million then. Again, it was $111 million now. Some other troubling figures, installs of its mobile app were down 13%. Their stock is down 59%. One silver lining was logistics revenue, which more than doubled. of its mobile app were down 13%. Their stock is down 59%. One silver lining was logistics revenue, which more

Starting point is 00:08:28 than doubled, but when you break out revenue from their bread-and-butter e-commerce sales, that pot of money was down 29%. Wish's CEO says he expects Q3 numbers to also be down. So with the possible exception of Wish, e-commerce is a strong player right now, and we

Starting point is 00:08:48 are seeing some brands reorganize their operations around online selling. Here's a big example, the Hudson's Bay Company. I don't have to explain this to Canadians. Suffice to say, the brand is iconic here, if riddled with a questionable colonial history. This week it said it would separate its department stores and e-commerce unit into two different businesses. The 86 department stores will use the Hudson's Bay Company as the brand, and the e-commerce operation will just be called The Bay. The Bay will sell more than 25,000 products from 1,500 brands. It is already the sixth largest e-commerce platform in Canada.

Starting point is 00:09:35 Oh, and as for the Friday quiz, does Google consider how many customers or reviews a brand has when it decides how high up the search results you will appear? The answer? Nope, not at all. Here's Google search advocate John Mueller. As far as I know, we don't use the number of customers or reviews when it comes to web search with regards to ranking. Sometimes we do pull that information out and we might show it as kind of a rich result on the search results. It might be that for the Google My Business side of things, maybe that's taken into account more. I don't have much insight there.

Starting point is 00:10:16 But with regards to normal web search, we don't take that into account. You can sponsor a whole month's worth of the Friday quiz for less than 100 bucks. Check the episode notes or go to todayindigital.com slash ads. So small successes on the home automation front. Thank you for those of you who tweeted and emailed some advice for me. The HomePod Mini appears to have, now I'm saying this with fingers crossed here, I don't want to jinx anything, but appears to have fixed the distance

Starting point is 00:10:47 issue I was having with the sprinkler. Remember, the sprinkler just on Bluetooth itself, despite Bluetooth being, you know, 20, 30 feet, the sprinkler would not receive a signal more than, like, 4 feet away from it. But apparently, HomePod Mini has this thread mesh network in it, as does the sprinkler, as does the door opener

Starting point is 00:11:03 that I've now bought. Less because I need a door opener, but more because I need a stupid thread device in the middle. But it seems to be working. HomePod's really cool, by the way. Also coming, and feel free to make fun of me for this one, a humidifier and essential oil diffuser, also HomeKit enabled. So I'll be able to actually finally say, Hey Siri, turn on the stink machine. Sorry, I didn't quite catch that.

Starting point is 00:11:31 Well, I don't have it yet, you dumb overpriced phone that I got. Today in Digital Marketing is produced on beautiful Vancouver Island by EngageQ Digital. Production support and fact-checking by Sarah Gill. Theme composer Mark Levis is the proverbial wind beneath my wings, podcast music licensing by Source Audio. I'm Todd Maffin, have a restful weekend, friends,

Starting point is 00:11:51 and I'll talk to you on Monday. ...on this summer night.

Today in Digital Marketing - Et tu, Reddit? 😪

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